LIBRARY  OF  THE  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

PRINCETON,   N.  J. 

Presented  by 

BV  4811  .M25  1897 

Maclaren,  Alexander,  1826-  i 

1910.  I 

Music  for  the  soul  I 


MUSIC    FOR    THE    SOUL 


I9?3 


MUSIC   FOR  THE 

DAILY   READINGS   FOR   A  YEAR   FROM 
THE   WRITINGS   OF   THE 

REV.    ALEXANDER    MACLAREN,    D.D. 


SELECTED  AND  ARRANGED  BY  THE  REV.  GEO.  COATES 


NEW  YORK 

A.    C    ARMSTRONG    AND    SON 

51,     EAST    TENTH     STREET 
1897 


Press  of  J.  J.  Little  &  Co. 
Astor  Place,  New  York 


INTRODUCTION 

npHE  cultivation  of  the  spiritual  side  of  the  devotional  life  is 
-■■  the  purpose  for  which  this  book  has  been  compiled.  No 
words  can  possibly  describe  the  absolute  necessity  of  cultivating 
a  higher  tone  in  the  spiritual  life  of  the  Christians  of  this  age  ; 
and  it  may  be  asserted,  without  fear  of  contradiction,  that 
Dr.  Alexander  Maclaren's  writings  supply  ample  food  for  devotion 
and  meditation.  Ever>'  sentence  he  utters  is  full  to  overflowing 
of  spiritual  power  and  unction.  He  is  master  of  the  art  of  how 
to  touch  the  human  soul  by  the  simple,  God-appointed  method 
of  preaching  the  Gospel  in  all  the  majesty  and  glory  of  an  ex- 
perimental force.  He  believes,  therefore  he  speaks  ;  and  such 
speaking  cannot  fail  to  reach  the  heart.  God  has  used  this  great 
preacher  in  the  spiritual  up-building  of  multitudes  of  Christians 
the  world  over,  and  in  the  salvation  of  many  who,  through  the 
influence  of  his  burning  words,  have  been  brought  from  "dark- 
ness to  light,  and  from  the  power  of  Satan  unto  God.'' 

Every  Christian  should  have  his  Day-book  of  Devotional 
Reading,  not  to  be  used  instead  of  the  Word  of  God,  but  along 
with  it.  Contact  with  souls  whose  experience  of  God's  grace  and 
mercy  has  revealed  ripened  acquaintance  with  Him  who  is  the 
Life  and  the  Light  of  men  is  manifestly  helpful  to  all  believers 
in  a  common  Saviour.  Since  Thomas  ^  Kempis,  Bogatzky, 
Dr.  J.  R.  Miller,  and  others  have  given  to  us  their  wonderful 
devotional  meditations,  the  "  Daily  Devotional  Book "  has  been 
a  recognised  companion  of  the  devout  life.  Let  the  Bible,  the 
living  Word  of  the  living  Christ,  be  our  first  and  chief  book, 
but  by  its  side,  and  as  a  helper  to  its  proper  devotional  study,  let 


INTRODUCTION 

the  Christian  gather  some  taper-lights  from  the  men  and  women 
whose  spiritual  inspiration  is  assured,  and  whose  hearts  and  lips 
have  been  touched  with  a  live-coal  from  off  God's  altar.  "  Let 
the  word  of  Christ  dwell  in  you  richly,  in  all  wisdom." 

The  preparation  of  the  volume  has  been  a  help  and  inspiration 
to  the  compiler.  The  subject  headings  and  the  Scripture 
passages  have  been  selected  with  great  care,  and  are  suggestive, 
as  far  as  it  was  possible,  of  the  thoughts  contained  in  the 
quotations  from  Dr.  Maclaren.  It  will  be  seen  that  most,  if  not 
all,  of  the  Scriptural  quotations  are  from  the  Revised  Version. 
Full  textual  and  subject  indices  will  be  found  at  the  end. 

I  desire  to  acknowledge  my  obligation  to  Dr.  Maclaren  for 
his  ready  and  gracious  acquiescence  in  the  preparation  and 
publication  of  this  work  ;  also  to  Messrs.  Macmillan  and  Co., 
the  "  Christian  Commonwealth  Publishing  Co.,  Limited,"  and 
Messrs.  Alexander  and  Shepheard  for  permission  to  make  extracts 
from  the  published  volumes  of  Dr.  Maclaren's  sermons. 

I  send  the  book  forth  in  the  earnest  hope  and  with  the  prayer 
that  the  "  Daily  Readings  "  may  be  a  means  of  spiritual  quickening 
and  stimulus  to  all  who  are  seeking  for  a  fuller  baptism  of  the 
Holy  Spirit. 

G.  COATES. 
October^  1897. 


DAILY    READINGS    FOR    A    YEAR 


IN  REMEMBRANCE  OF  CHRIST. 
This  do  in  remembrance  of  Me. — i  COR.  xi.  24, 

January  1.  "  ^°  ^^^  '^"^  *^^  "^"^^  °^  ^^^  ^^^  Jesus.'*  Do  this  in  remem- 
brance of  Christ,  or,  as  Paul  expresses  it,  **  discerning  the  Lord's 
body,"  not  only  because  you  are  in  danger  of  forgetting^  but  do  this  because 
you  remember.  Do  this,  not  only  in  order  that  your  reminiscences  may  be 
strengthened,  but  do  it  because  they  are  strong.  Seeing  the  Lord's  body, 
discerning  His  presence,  loving  that  which  you  discern — do  this  !  And,  in 
like  manner,  "  Whatsoever  ye  do,  in  word  or  deed,  do  all  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord  Jesus."  Do  all,  that  is  to  say,  for  the  sake  of  the  character,  as 
revealed  to  you,  of  Him  whom  you  love  ;  do  it  all,  giving  thanks  unto  God 
and  the  Father  by  Him.  And  then,  in  the  parallel  passage,  *'  Whatsoever 
ye  do,  do  it  heartily," — that  is  one  principle  ;  and  next,  as  the  foundation  of 
all  real  heartiness,  do  it  *'  as  to  the  Lord."  This  is  the  foundation,  and  the 
limitation  as  well ;  for  it  is  only  when  we  do  it  "  heartily,  as  to  the  Lord," 
that  earnestness  is  kept  from  degenerating  into  absorption,  and  that  a  man, 
whilst  working  with  all  his  might,  and  "  diligent  in  business,"  shall  also  be 
'*  fervent  in  spirit."  The  motive  is  the  same  :  in  the  Communion  it  is  the 
remembrance  of  the  Lord  ;  in  the  ordinary  life  it  is  "in  the  name  of  the 
Lord  Jesus."  Is  that  sacred  motive  one  which  is  kept  for  select  occasions, 
and  for  what  we  call  special  acts  of  worship  ?  It  is  to  be  feared  that  the 
most  of  Christian  people  do  with  that  Divine  reason  for  work,  "  the  love  of 
Christ  constraineth  me,"  as  the  old  Franks  (to  use  a  strange  illustration) 
used  to  do  with  their  long-haired  kings — they  keep  them  in  the  palace  at 
all  ordinary  times,  give  them  no  power  over  the  government  of  the  kingdom, 
only  now  and  then  bring  them  out  to  grace  a  procession,  and  then  take 
them  back  again  into  their  reverential  impotence.  That  is  very  like  what 
Christian  people  do,  to  a  very  large  extent,  with  that  which  ought  to  be  the 
rule  of  all  their  life  and  the  motive  of  all  their  work.  We  sit  down  to  the 
communion,  and  we  do  it  "  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus  "  ;  we  commemo- 
rate Him  there.  When  we  come  to  pray,  we  speak  to  Him  and  in  His 
Name.  Our  high  tides  of  devotion  do  not  come  so  often  as  the  tides  of  the 
sea  ;  and  then  for  the  rest  of  our  time  there  is  the  long  stretch  of  foul,  oozy, 
barren  beach  when  the  waters  are  out,  and  all  is  desolation  and  deadness. 
That  is  not  what  a  Christian  man  ought  to  be.  There  is  no  action  of  life 
which  is  too  great  to  bow  to  the  influence  of  "This  do  in  remembrance  of 
Me  "  ;  and  there  is  no  action  of  life  which  is  too  small  to  be  magnified, 
glorified,  turned  into  a  solemn  sacrament,  by  the  operation  of  the  same 
motive. 


THE  PRESENT  THE  PROPHECY  OF  THE   FUTURE. 

Stretching  forward  to  tht  things  which  are  before,  I  press  on  towards  the 
goal. — -Phil.  iii.  13,  14. 

January  2.  CHILDHOOD  is  the  prophecy  of  maturity.  "  The  child  is  father 
of  the  man"  ;  the  bud  foretells  the  flower.  In  the  same  way, 
the  very  imperfections  of  the  Christian  life,  as  it  is  seen  here,  argue  the 
existence  of  another  state  where  all  that  is  here  in  the  germ  shall  be  fully 
matured,  and  all  that  is  here  incomplete  shall  attain  the  perfection  which 
alone  wdll  correspond  to  the  power  that  works  in  us.  Think  of  the 
ordinary  Christian  character.  The  germ  is  there,  and  more  than  the  germ. 
As  one  looks  at  the  crudity,  the  inconsistencies,  the  failings,  the  feebleness 
of  the  Christian  life  of  others,  or  of  one's  self,  and  then  thinks  that  such  a 
poor,  imperfect  exhibition  is  all  that  so  Divine  a  principle  has  been  able 
to  achieve  in  this  world,  one  feels  that  there  must  be  a  region  and  a  time 
where  we  shall  be  all  which  the  transforming  power  of  God's  Spirit  can 
make  us.  True,  the  very  inconsistencies  of  Christians  are  as  strong  a 
reason  for  believing  in  the  perfect  life  of  heaven  as  their  purities  and 
virtues.  We  have  a  right  to  say  mighty  principles  are  at  work  after 
Christian  souls — the  power  of  the  Cross,  the  power  of  love  essaying  to 
obedience,  the  power  of  an  indwelling  Spirit  ;  and  is  this  all  that  these 
great  forces  are  going  to  effect  on  human  character?  Surely  a  seed  so 
precious  and  Divine  is  somewhere  and  some  time  to  bring  forth 
something  better  than  these  few  poor  half-developed  flowers,  something 
with  more  lustrous  petals  and  richer  fragrance.  The  plant  is  clearly  an 
exotic  here  ;  does  not  its  obviously  struggling  growth  here  tell  of  warmer 
suns  and  richer  soil  where  it  will  be  at  home  ? 

There  is  a  great  deal  in  every  man,  and  most  of  all  in  Christian  men  and 
women,  which  does  not  fit  this  present.  All  other  creatures  correspond 
in  their  capacities  to  the  place  where  they  are  set  down  ;  and  the  world 
in  which  the  plant  or  the  animal  lives,  the  world  of  their  surroundings, 
stimulates  to  activity  all  their  powers.  But  that  is  not  so  with  a  man. 
"Foxes  have  holes,  birds  of  the  air  have  nests."  They  fit  exactly  and 
correspond  to  their  "environment."  But  a  man  ! — there  is  an  enormous 
amount  of  waste  faculty  about  him  if  he  is  only  going  to  live  in  this  world. 
There  is  a  great  deal  in  every  nature,  and  most  of  all  in  a  Christian  nature, 
which  is  like  the  packages  that  emigrants  take  with  them,  marked  '*  Not 
wanted  on  the  voyage."  These  go  down  into  the  hold,  and  they  are  only 
of  use  after  landing  in  the  new  world.  If  I  am  a  son  of  God,  I  have  got 
much  in  me  that  is  '*  not  wanted  on  the  voyage"  ;  and  the  more  I  grow  into 
His  likeness,  the  more  I  am  thrown  out  of  harmony  with  the  things  round 
about  me  in  proportion  as  I  am  brought  into  harmony  with  the  things 
beyond. 

**  Neither  life,  nor  death,  nor  things  present,  nor  things  to  come,  nor 
height,  nor  depth,  nor  any  other  creature,"  shall  be  able  to  break  that  tie 
and  banish  the  child  from  the  conscious  grasp  of  a  Father's  hand.  Dear 
brother  and  sister,  can  you  say,  **  Now  am  I  a  child  of  God  "  ? 

Then  you  may  patiently  and  peacefully  firont  that  dim  future. 


TO-DAY. 
To-day,  if  ye  will  hear  His  voice,  harden  not  your  hearts. — Heb.  iii.  15. 

I  SAY  nothing  about  other  reasons  for  pronapt  action,  such  as 

anuary  .  ^^^^  every  moment  makes  it  harder  for  a  man  to  turn  to  Jesus 
Christ  as  his  Saviour.  The  dreadful  power  of  habit  weaves  chains  about 
him,  thin  at  first  as  a  spider's  web,  solid  at  last  as  an  iron  fetter.  Associations 
that  entangle,  connections  that  impede,  grow  with  terrible  rapidity.  And  if 
it  is  hard  for  you  to  turn  to  your  Lord  now,  it  will  never  be  easier,  and  will 
certainly  be  harder. 

And,  dear  friend,  **  to-day  " — ^how  long  is  it  going  to  last  ?  Of  course, 
I  know  that  all  the  deepest  reasons  for  your  being  a  Christian  remain 
unaffected  if  you  were  going  to  live  in  the  world  for  ever.  And,  of  course, 
I  know  that  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  is  as  good  to  live  by  as  it  is  to  die 
by.  But,  notwithstanding,  common  sense  says  that  if  our  time  here  is  so 
uncertain  as  we  know  it  to  be,  there  is  no  time  to  put  off.  You  and  I  have 
to  die,  whether  we  find  a  convenient  season  for  it  or  not.  And  perhaps 
we  have  to  die  before  we  find  Felix's  "convenient  season"  to  send  for 
Paul  or  Paul's  Master.  So,  in  the  narrowest  sense  of  the  word,  "  To-day 
,  .  .  harden  not  your  hearts," 

But  I  dare  say  some  of  you,  and  especially  some  of  you  young  people, 
may  be  kept  from  accepting  Jesus  Christ  as  your  Saviour,  and  serving 
Him,  by  a  vague  disinclination  and  dread  to  make  so  great  a  change.  I 
beseech  you,  do  not  give  a  feather's  weight  to  such  considerations.  If  a 
change  is  right,  the  sooner  it  is  made  the  better.  The  shrinking  all  passes 
when  it  is  made,  just  as  a  bather  recovers  himself  when  once  his  head  has 
been  plunged  beneath  the  water. 

And  some  of  you  may  be  kept  back  because  you  know  that  there  are 
sins  that  you  will  have  to  unveil  if  you  become  Christians.  Well,  do  not 
let  that  keep  you  back  either.  Confession  is  healing  and  good  and  sweet 
to  the  soul,  if  it  is  needful  for  repentance.  Sins  that  men  have  a  right 
to  know  hurt  as  long  as  they  are  hid,  and  cease  to  hurt  when  they  are 
acknowledged,  like  the  fox  beneath  the  Spartan  boy's  robe,  that  gnawed 
when  it  was  covered  up,  and  stopped  biting  when  it  was  revealed. 

So,  dear  friend,  you  hear  Christ  speaking  to  you  in  His  Word,  in  His 
servants,  in  the  depths  of  your  hearts.  He  speaks  to  you  of  a  dying 
Saviour,  of  His  infinite  love,  of  His  perfect  sacrifice,  of  a  complete  salva- 
tion, a  cleansed  heart,  a  blessed  life,  a  calm  death,  an  open  heaven  for 
each,  if  we  will  take  them      '*  See  that  ye  refuse  not  Him  that  speaketh." 

3 


OUR    RELATION   TO  OUR  LORD. 

To  us  there  is  but  one  God,  the  Father^  of  whom  are  all  thingSf  and  we 
in  Him. — I  Cor.  viii.  6. 

J  -      Every  act  of  our  life  sets  forth  some  aspect  of  our  Lord  and 

*"  '     of  our  relation  to  Him,  from  the  moment  when  we  open  our 

eyes  in  the  morning, — as  those  do  who,  having  slept  the  sleep  of  sin,  awake 
to  righteousness,  all  through  the  busy  day,  when  our  work  may  speak  to 
us  of  His  that  worketh  continually,  and  our  rest  may  prophesy  to  us  of 
the  "rest  that  remaineth  for  the  people  of  God";  and  our  journeyings 
may  tell  of  the  journey  of  the  soul  of  God,  and  our  home  may  testify  of 
the  home  which  is  above  the  skies, — up  to  the  hour  when  night  falls,  and 
sleep,  the  image  of  Death,  speaks  to  us  of  the  last  solemn  moment,  when 
we  shall  close  the  eyes  of  our  body  on  earth,  to  open  those  of  our  soul  on 
the  realities  of  eternity;  when  we  shall  no  more  "see  through  a  glass 
darkly,  but  face  to  face."  All  things,  and  all  acts,  and  this  whole 
wonderful  universe,  proclaim  to  us  the  Lord  our  P'ather,  Christ  our  love, 
Christ  our  hope,  our  portion,  and  our  joy  !  Oh,  if  you  would  know  the 
meaning  of  the  world,  read  Christ  in  it !  If  you  would  see  the  beauty  of 
earth,  take  it  for  a  prophet  of  something  higher  than  itself  !  If  you  would 
pierce  beneath  the  surface  and  know  the  sanctities  that  are  all  about  us, 
remember  that  when  He  took  bread  and  wine  for  a  memorial  of  Him,  He 
did  not  profane  thereby,  but  consecrated  thereby,  all  that  He  left  out,  and 
asserted  the  same  power  and  the  same  prerogative,  in  lower  degree,  but 
as  really  and  truly,  for  everything  which  the  loving  eye  should  look  upon, 
for  everything  which  the  believing  heart  should  apprehend  !  All  is  sacred. 
The  world  is  the  temple  of  God.  Everywhere  there  are  symbols  and 
memorials  of  the  living  God. 

Is  it  not  something  to  have  a  principle  which,  whilst  leaving  events  in  all 
their  power  to  tell  upon  us,  yet  prevents  anything  from  degenerating  into 
triviality,  and  prevents  anything  from  pressing  upon  us  with  an  over- 
whelming weight  ?  Would  it  not  be  grand  if  we  could  so  go  through  life 
as  that  all  should  be  not  one  dead  level,  but  one  high  plateau,  as  it  were, 
on  the  mountain-top  there,  because  all  rested  upon  "  Whatsoever  ye  do,  in 
word  or  deed,  do  it  all  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus  "  ?  Ah  !  it  is  possible 
— not  to  our  weak  faith,  perhaps ;  but  the  weakness  of  the  faith  is  not 
inevitable.  It  is  possible,  though  we  be  surrounded  by  many  things  that 
make  it  very  hard.  It  is  possible,  and  therefore  it  is  duty.  It  is  possible, 
and  therefore  the  opposite  is  not  merely  a  neglect,  but  is  positive  sin. 
Oh,  to  have  my  life  equable  like  that,  with  one  high,  diffusive  influence 
through  it  all,  with  one  simple  consecration  placed  upon  it,  that  one  motive, 
"The  love  of  Christ  constraineth  us"  !  Why,  it  is  like  one  of  those 
applications  of  power  you  have  often  seen,  when  a  huge  hammer  is  lifted 
up,  and  comes  down  with  a  crash  that  breaks  the  granite  in  pieces,  or  may 
be  allowed  to  fall  so  gently  and  so  true  that  it  touches,  without  cracking, 
a  tiny  nut  beneath  it.  The  one  principle,  mighty  and  crashing  when  it  is 
wanted  ;  and  yet  coming  down  with  gentle,  accurately-proportioned  force  on 
all  life.  Or,  to  take  a  higher  illustration  :  it  is  like  that  mighty  power  that 
holds  a  planet  in  its  orbit,  in  the  wild  weltering  wastes  of  solitary  space  ; 
and  yet  binds  down  the  sand-grain  and  dust-mote  to  its  place.  Or, 
higher  and  truer  still,  the  love  of  Christ  that  constraineth  us  makes  us 
cquaVjle,  calm,  consistent,  in  shadowy  but  real  copy  of  the  everlasting 
tranquillity  of  our  Father  in  heaven. 


THE  HEAVY  COST  OF  THE  WORLD. 

What  shall  it  profit  a  ntattf  if  he  gain  the  whole  worlds  and  lose  his  own 
soul  ? — Mark  viii.  36. 

You  get  nothing  for  nothing  in  the  world's  market.     It  is  a 

annary  .  -^^^  price  that  you  have  to  pay  before  these  mercenaries  will 
come  to  fight  on  your  side.  Here  is  a  man  that  "succeeds  in  life,"  as  we 
call  it.  What  does  it  cost  him  ?  Well,  it  has  cost  him  the  suppression, 
the  atrophy  by  disuse  of  many  capacities  in  his  soul  which  were  far  higher 
and  nobler  than  those  that  have  l3een  exercised  in  his  success  ;  it  has  cost 
him  all  his  days  ;  it  has  possibly  cost  him  the  dying  out  of  generous  sym- 
pathies and  the  stimulating  of  unwholesome  selfishness.  Ah  !  he  has 
bought  his  prosperity  very  dear.  If  people  would  estimate  what  they  pay 
for  gold,  in  an  immense  majority  of  cases,  in  treasure  that  cannot  be 
weighed  and  stamped,  they  would  find  it  to  be  about  the  dearest  thing 
in  God's  universe  ;  and  that  there  are  few  men  who  make  worse  bargains 
than  the  men  who  give  themselves  for  worldly  success,  even  when  they 
receive  what  they  give  themselves  for. 

Some  of  you  know  how  much  what  you  call  enjoyment  has  cost  you. 
Some  have  bought  pleasure  at  the  price  of  innocence,  of  moral  dignity, 
of  stained  memories,  of  polluted  imaginations,  of  an  incapacity  to  rise 
above  the  flesh  ;  and  some  have  bought  it  at  the  price  of  health.  The 
world  has  a  way  of  getting  more  than  it  gives. 

At  the  best,  if  you  are  not  Christian  men  and  women,  whether  )^ou  are 
men  of  business,  votaries  of  pleasure,  seekers  after  culture  and  refinement, 
or  anything  else,  you  have  given  Heaven  to  get  earth.  Is  that  a  good 
bargain  ?  Is  it  much  wiser  than  that  of  a  horde  of  naked  savages  that  sell  a 
great  tract  of  fair  country,  with  gold-bearing  reefs  in  it,  for  a  bottle  of  rum 
and  a  yard  or  two  of  calico  ?  What  is  the  difference  ?  You  have  been  fooled 
out  of  the  inheritance  which  God  meant  for  you  ;  and  you  have  got  for  it 
transient  satisfaction,  and  partial  as  it  is  transient.  If  you  are  not  Christian 
people,  you  have  to  buy  this  world's  wealth  and  goods  at  the  price  of  God 
and  of  your  own  souls.  And  I  ask  you  if  that  is  an  investment  which 
recommends  itself  to  your  common  sense.  Oh,  my  brother  !  "what  shall 
it  profit  a  man,  if  he  gain  the  whole  world,  and  lose  himself?"  Answer 
the  question. 

Only  he  that  is  "  a  man  in  Christ "  has  come  "  to  the  measure  of  the 
stature  of  a  perfect  man."  There,  and  there  alone,  do  we  get  the  power 
which  will  make  us  full-grown.  There  alone  does  the  soul  get  hold  of  that 
good  soil  in  which,  grov/ing,  it  becomes  as  a  rounded,  perfect  tree,  with 
leaves  and  fruits  in  their  season.  All  other  men  are  half-men,  quarter-men, 
fragments  of  men,  parts  of  humanity  exaggerated,  and  contorted,  and  dis- 
torted from  the  reconciling  whole  which  the  Christian  ought  to  be,  and  in 
proportion  to  his  Christianity  is  on  the  road  to  be,  and  one  day  will 
assuredly  and  actually  be,  a  "complete  man,  wanting  nothing"  ;  nothing 
maimed,  nothing  broken,  the  realisation  of  the  ideal  of  humanity,  the 
renewed  copy  "  of  the  second  Adam,  the  Lord  from  heaven." 

5 


ALL  CHRISTIAN  LIVING  A  SHOWING  FORTH  OF 
CHRIST'S   DEATH. 

Bearing  about  in  the  body  the  dying  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  that  the  life  also 
of  Jesus  might  be  made  manifest  in  our  body. — 2  CoR.  iv.  10. 

This  showing  forth  of  Christ's  death  is  the  truest  explanation 
'  and  definition  that  we  can  give  of  the  process  by  which  a 
Christian  soul  grows  up  into  the  likeness  of  its  Lord.  The  death  of  the 
Lord  Jesus,  as  a  death  for  us,  and  the  ground  of  our  hope,  is  to  be  shown 
forth  in  our  daily  walk,  as  a  death  working  in  us,  and  the  ground  of  our 
conduct.  There  is  not  only  the  atoning  and  sacrificial  aspect  in  Christ's 
death  on  the  Cross,  but  there  is  this  likewise,  that  it  stands  as  the  example 
of  the  way  by  which  we  are,  in  our  measure  and  place,  to  *'  mortify  our 
members  which  are  upon  the  earth,"  because  "we  are  dead  with  Him, 
and  our  life  is  hid  with  Christ  in  God."  Here,  then,  we  say,  "That 
death  was  for  me,  and  I  trust  it "  :  in  our  common  life  we  are  to  say, 
*'That  death  is  working  in  ?ne,  and  I  am  becoming  conformable  unto  the 
image  of  His  death,  that  I  may  know  Him,  and  the  power  of  His  resur- 
rection, and  so  attain  to  the  resurrection  of  the  dead."  And  as  sacred  as 
is  the  one  form  of  memorial,  so  sacred  is  the  other  ;  and  closer  than  the 
outward  sign  which  expresses  the  outward  fact  upon  which  we  hope,  is  the 
inward  reality  by  which  alone  the  outward  fact  becomes  the  basis  of  our 
hope  and  the  reason  for  our  confidence.  No  man  manifests  the  death  of 
Christ  by  any  outward  act  of  communion  or  worship  who  is  not  feeling  it 
daily  in  his  own  soul ;  and  no  man  has  any  right  to  say,  "  I  am  trusting  in 
that  death  as  a  sacrifice  and  salvation,"  who  does  not  feel  and  show  that  he 
is  builded  on  Christ,  and  that  that  death  is  in  him  a  power  to  change  him 
into  its  own  likeness.  It  is  in  vain  for  us  to  say  that  we  are  relying  on 
Christ,  unless  Christ  be  in  us,  slaying  the  old  man  and  quickening  the  new. 
The  one  test  of  true  faith  is  the  inward  possession  of  the  Lord's  Spirit ;  and 
between  the  sacrifice  on  the  Cross  and  me  the  sinful  man,  there  is  no  real 
union  effected,  nor  any  imputation  and  transference  of  merits,  unless  with 
it,  proof  of  it,  and  consequence  of  it, — and  proof  of  it  because  consequence 
of  it, — there  be  likewise  "Oc^o.  Jlciving-over  from  the  Cross  to  me  of  the  life 
that  was  in  Him,  and  of  the  death  that  He  died.  You  do  "  show  forth  the 
Lord's  death  till  He  come  "  not  only,  nor  chiefly,  when  you  take  the  bread 
and  the  wine  in  remembrance  of  Him,  but  when,  in  daily  contact  with  sin, 
in  dnily  practice  of  that  bitter  and  yet  most  sweet  lesson  of  self-denial  and 
sacrifice,  you  "  crucify  the  old  man  with  his  affections  and  lusts,"  and 
"  rise  again  into  newness  of  life."  The  fact  is  better  than  the  symbol — the 
inward  communion  more  true  than  the  outward  participation.  Just  in 
proportion  as  His  flesh  and  His  blood  are  better  and  more  vivifying  than 
the  bread  and  wine  which  feeds  the  body,  in  the  same  proportion  is  the 
manifestation  of  His  death  in  life  a  nobler  thing  than  the  manifestation  ol 
His  death  at  any  table. 

6 


KNOWLEDGE  AND   LOVE. 

//  /  have  the  gift  of  prophecy,  and  know  all  tnysteries  and  all  know* 
ledgey  .  .  .  but  have  not  love,  I  am  nothing. — i  CoR.  xiii.  2. 

January  7.  ^  MAN  may  know  al!  about  Christ  and  His  love  without  one 
spark  of  love  in  his  heart.  There  are  thousands  of  people 
who,  as  far  as  their  heads  are  concerned,  know  quite  as  much  of  Jesus 
Christ  and  His  love  as  any  of  us  do,  and  could  talk  about  it  and  argue 
about  it,  and  draw  inferences  from  it,  and  have  got  the  whole  sj'stem  of 
evangelical  Christianity  at  their  fingers'  ends.  Ay  !  It  is  at  their  fingers' 
ends  ;  it  never  gets  any  nearer  them  than  that. 

There  is  a  knowledge  with  which  love  has  nothing  to  do,  and  it  is  a 
knowledge  that  with  many  people  is  all-sufficient.  "Knowledge  puffeth 
up,"  says  the  Apostle,  into  an  unwholesome  bubble  of  self-complacency 
that  will  one  day  be  pricked  and  disappear — nothing  ;  but  "charity,  love, 
buildeth  up  "  a  steadfast,  slowly-rising,  solid  fabric.  There  be  two  kinds 
of  knowledge  :  the  mere  rattle  of  notions  in  a  man's  dry  brain,  like  the 
seeds  of  a  withered  poppy-head — very  many,  very  dry,  very  hard  — that  will 
make  a  noise  when  you  shake  it  ;  and  there  is  another  kind  of  knowledge, 
which  goes  deep  down  into  the  heart,  and  is  the  only  knowledge  worth 
calling  by  the  name,  and  that  knowledge  is  the  child  of  love.  Love, 
says  Paul,  is  the  paient  of  all  knowledge.  We  know,  really  know,  any 
emotions  of  any  sort  whatever  only  by  experience.  You  may  talk  for  ever 
about  feelings,  and  you  teach  nothing  about  them  to  those  who  have  not 
experienced  them.  The  poets  of  the  world  have  been  singing  about  love 
ever  since  the  world  began.  But  no  heart  has  learned  what  love  is  from 
even  the  sweetest  and  deepest  songs.  Who  that  is  not  a  father  can  be 
taught  paternal  love  by  words,  or  can  come  to  a  perception  of  it  by  an  effort 
of  mind  ?  And  so  wiih  all  other  emotions.  Only  the  lips  that  have  drunk 
the  cup  of  sweetness  or  of  bitterness  can  tell  how  sweet  or  how  bitter  it  is  ; 
and  even  when  they,  made  wise  by  experience,  speak  out  their  deepest 
hearts,  the  listeners  are  but  little  the  wiser  unless  they  too  have  been 
initiated  in  the  same  school.  Experience  is  our  only  teacher  in  matters  of 
feeling  and  emotion,  as  in  the  lower  regions  of  taste  and  appetite.  A  man 
must  be  hungry  to  know  what  hunger  is  ;  he  must  taste  honey  or  worm- 
wood in  order  to  know  the  taste  of  honey  or  wormwood  ;  and  in  like  manner 
he  cannot  know  sorrow  but  by  feeling  its  ache,  and  must  love  if  he  would 
know  love.  Experience  is  our  only  teacher,  and  her  school-fees  are  heavy. 
Just  as  a  blind  man  can  never  be  made  to  understand  the  glories  of  sunrise 
or  the  light  upon  the  far-off  mountains  ;  just  as  a  deaf  man  may  read  books 
about  acoustics,  but  they  will  not  give  him  a  notion  of  what  it  is  to  hear 
Beethoven  ; — so  we  must  have  love  to  Christ  before  we  know  what  love  to 
Christ  is,  and  we  must  consciously  experience  the  love  of  Christ  ere  we 
know  what  the  love  of  Christ  is  ;  and  we  must  have  love  to  Christ  in  order 
to  have  a  deep  and  living  possession  of  the  love  <?/"  Christ,  though  reciprocally 
it  is  also  true  that  we  must  have  the  love  of  Christ  known  and  felt  by  oui 
answering  hearts,  if  we  are  ever  to  love  Him  back  again. 

♦'  He  must  be  loved,  ere  that  to  you 
He  will  seem  worthy  of  your  love." 


THE  SANCTITY  OF  LOVE. 

That  ye  ,  ,  .  may  be  strong  to  apprehend  with  all  the  saints  what  ts  the 
breadth  and  length  and  height  and  depth,  and  to  know  the  love  of  Christ, 
which  passeth  knowledge. — Eph.  iii.  i8,  19. 

_  -      Before  vt^e  cr^n  love  an  unseen  person  and  believe  in  his 

January  8.     ,  .         ^  . 

love,  we  must  know  about  him  by  the  ordinary  means  by 

which  we  learn  about  ail  persons  outside  the  circle  of  our  sight.  So,  before 
the  love  which  is  thus  the  parent  of  deep,  true  knowledge,  there  must  be 
the  knowledge  by  study  and  credence  of  the  record  concerning  Christ, 
which  supplies  the  facts  on  which  alone  love  can  be  cherished.  The  under- 
standing has  its  part  to  play  in  leading  the  heart  to  love,  and  then  the 
heart  becomes  the  true  teacher.  He  that  loveth,  knoweth  God,  for  God 
is  love.  He  that,  because  Christ  dwells  in  his  heart,  is  rooted  and 
grounded  in  love,  will  be  strengthened  to  know  the  love  in  which  he  is 
rooted.  The  Christ  within  us  will  know  the  love  of  Christ.  We  must 
first  "taste,"  and  then  we  shall  "see"  that  the  Lord  is  good,  as  the 
Psalmist  puts  it  with  deep  truth.  First  the  appropriation  and  feeding 
upon  God,  then  the  clear  perception  by  the  mind  of  the  sweetness  in  the 
taste.  First  the  enjoyment,  then  the  reflection  of  the  enjoyment.  First 
the  love,  and  then  the  self-consciousness  of  the  love  of  Christ  possesses  and 
the  love  to  Christ  is  experienced,  which  is  knowledge.  There  is  another 
condition  laid  down  in  these  words,  ' '  That  ye  may  be  able  to  comprehend 
with  all  saints.^'  That  is  to  say,  our  knowledge  of  the  love  of  Jesus 
Christ  depends  largely  on  our  sanctity.  If  we  are  pure,  we  shall  know. 
If  we  were  wholly  devoted  to  Him,  we  should  wholly  know  His  love  to  us  ; 
and  in  the  measure  in  which  we  are  pure  and  holy,  we  shall  know  it. 
That  heart  of  ours  is  like  some  reflecting  telescope  ;  the  least  breath  of 
earth  upon  the  mirror  will  cause  all  the  starry  sublimities  that  it  should 
shadow  forth  to  fade  and  become  dim.  The  slightest  moisture  in  the 
atmosphere,  though  it  be  quite  imperceptible  where  we  stand,  will  yet  be 
dense  enough  to  shut  our  the  fair,  shining,  snowy  summits  that  girdle  the 
horizon  there,  and  to  leave  nothing  visible  but  the  lowliness  and  common- 
placeness  of  the  prosaic  plain. 

If  you  want  to  know  the  love  of  Christ,  that  love  must  purify  your 
souls.  But  then  you  must  keep  your  souls  pure,  assured  of  this,  that  only 
the  single  eye  is  full  of  light,  and  that  they  who  are  not  "saints"  grope 
in  the  dark  even  at  mid-day,  and  whilst  drenched  by  the  sunsliine  of  His 
love,  are  unconscious  of  it  altogether.  And  so  we  get  that  miserable  and 
mysterious  tragedy  that  men  and  women  walk  through  life,  as  many  ol 
you  are  doing,  in  the  very  blaze  and  focus  of  Christ's  love,  and  never  behold 
it,  nor  know  anything  aliout  it. 

s 


THE  INDWELLING   CHRIST. 
That  Christ  may  dwellin  your  hearts  by  faith.  —  Eph.  iii.  17. 

There  must   be  an  indwelling  Christ  in  order  to  have  an 

anuary  .  experience,  deep  and  stable,  of  His  love.  Then  we  shall 
know  the  love  which  we  thus  experience.  But  how  comes  that  indwelling  ? 
That  is  the  question  for  us.  The  knowledge  of  His  love  is  blessedness, 
is  peace,  is  love,  is  everything.  That  knowledge  arises  from  our  fellowship 
with,  and  our  possession  of,  the  love  of  God  which  is  in  Jesus  Christ. 
How  does  that  fellowship  with,  and  possession  of,  the  love  of  God  in  Jesus 
Christ  come  ?  That  is  the  all-important  question.  What  is  the  beginning 
of  everything  ?  "That  Christ  may  dwell  in  your  hearts  by  faith."  There 
is  the  gate  through  which  you  and  I  may  come,  and  by  which  we  must 
come  if  we  are  to  come  at  all  into  the  possession  and  perception  of  Christ's 
great  love.  Here  is  the  path  of  knowledge.  First  of  all,  there  must  be 
the  knowledge  which  is  the  mere  work  of  the  understanding,  bringing  to 
us  the  facts  of  Christ's  life  and  death  for  us.  This  we  have  to  take  with 
the  hand  of  our  simple  understanding.  And  then  you  must  turn  these  truths 
from  mere  notions  into  life.  It  is  not  enough  to  know  the  love  that  God 
has  to  us  in  that  lower  sense  of  the  word  "knowledge."  Many  of  you 
know  that  who  never  got  any  blessing  out  of  it  all  your  days,  and  never 
will,  unless  you  change.  Besides  the  "knowing,"'  there  must  be  the 
"believing"  of  the  love.  You  must  translate  the  notion  into  a  living  fact 
in  your  experience.  You  must  pass  from  the  simple  work  of  understanding 
the  Gospel  to  the  higher  act  of  faith.  You  must  not  be  contented  with 
knowing,  you  must  trust. 

And  if  you  have  done  that,  all  the  rest  will  follow  ;  and  the  little,  narrow, 
low  doorway  of  humble,  self-distrusting  faith,  through  which  a  man  creeps 
on  his  knees,  leaving  outside  all  his  sin  and  his  burden,  opens  out  into  the 
temple  palace — a  large  place  in  which  Christ's  love  is  imparted  to  us  all. 

When  the  sunbeams  fall  upon  a  mirror,  it  flashes  in  the  light,  because 
they  do  not  enter  its  cold  surface.  It  is  a  mirror,  because  it  does  not  drink 
them  up,  but  flings  them  back.  The  contrary  is  the  case  with  the  sentient 
mirrors  of  our  spirits.  In  them  the  light  must  first  sink  in  before  it  can  ray 
out.  They  must  be  filled  with  the  glory  before  the  glory  can  stream  forth. 
They  are  not  so  much  like  a  reflecting  surface  as  like  a  bar  of  iron  which 
needs  to  be  heated  right  down  to  its  obstinate  black  core  before  its  outer 
skin  glow  with  the  whiteness  of  a  heat  that  is  too  hot  to  sparkle.  The 
sunshine  must  fall  on  us,  not  as  it  does  on  some  lonely  hill-side,  lighting  up 
the  grey  stones  with  a  passing  gleam  that  changes  nothing,  and  fades  away, 
leaving  the  solitude  to  its  sadness ;  but  as  it  does  on  some  cloud  cradled 
near  its  setting,  which  it  drenches  and  saturates  with  fire  till  its  cold  heart 
burns,  and  all  its  wreaths  of  vapour  are  brightness  palpable,  glorified  by  the 
light  which  lives  amidst  its  mists.  So  must  we  have  the  glory  sinlc  into  us 
before  it  can  be  reflected  from  us. 


WHO  IS  YOUR  KING? 

Choose  you  this  day  whom  you  will  serve. — Josh.  xxiv.  15. 

_  .Q     You  should  deliberately  decide  whether  or  not  Jesus  Christ 

'  is  to  be  your  Saviour  and  your  King. 
Deliberately  decide  !  God  has  given  us  that  awful  gift  of  choice,  and 
thereby  has  laid  upon  us  a  tremendous  weight  of  responsibility  which 
separates  us  from  all  the  less  endowed,  and  sometimes,  because  less  en- 
dowed, more  happy  creatures  round  us.  And  what  do  men  do  with  it  for 
the  most  part  ?  I  wonder  how  many  of  us  have  drifted  into  our  "opinions," 
as  we  are  pleased  to  call  them,  by  quite  another  process  than  that  of  an 
intelligent  weighing  of  the  force  of  evidence.  I  wonder  how  m.any  of  us 
have,  what  we  say,  with  unconscious  self-condemnation,  fallen  into  ways 
and  habits  of  action  which  we  never  consciously  resolved  should  be  our 
masters.  I  believe,  for  my  part,  that  the  most  of  the  life  of  the  bulk  of 
men  is  lived  without  any  adequate  exercise  of  their  own  deliberate  volition 
and  determination.  Sadly,  too,  many  of  us  seem  to  think  that  Nansen's 
way  of  getting  to  the  North  Pole  is  the  best  way  of  getting  through  the 
world — to  put  ourselves  into  a  current  and  let  it  carry  us.  We  drift.  We 
do  not  decide,  or,  if  we  do,  we  let  deliberate  choice  be  coerced  by  inclina- 
tion, and  let  wishes  put  their  claws  into  the  scale,  and  drag  it  down.  Or 
we  allow  our  environment  to  settle  a  large  part  of  our  beliefs  and  of  our 
practices.  It  must  settle  a  great  deal  of  both  for  all  of  us  ;  and  none  of  us 
can  get  rid  of  the  pressure  of  the  surrounding  atmosphere.  But  we  are 
meant  to  be  hammers,  and  not  anvils  ;  to  mould  circumstances,  not  to  be 
battered  and  moulded  by  them  ;  to  exercise  a  deliberate  choice,  and  not  to 
be  like  dead  fish  in  the  river,  who  are  carried  by  the  stream — or  like 
derelicts  in  the  Atlantic,  that  go  floating  about  for  years,  and  never  reach 
any  port  at  all,  but  are  caught  by  the  currents,  and  are  slaves  of  every 
wind  that  l)lows. 

Yoath  is  the  time  for  hope.  The  world  lies  all  before  us,  fair  and 
untried.  The  past  is  too  brief  to  occupy  us  long,  and  its  farthest  point  too 
near  to  be  clothed  in  the  airy  purple  which  draws  the  eye  and  stirs  the 
heart.  We  are  conscious  of  increasing  powers  which  crave  for  occupation. 
It  seems  impossible  but  that  success  and  joy  shall  be  ours.  So  we  live  for 
a  little  wh  le  in  a  golden  haze  ;  we  look  down  from  our  peak  upon  the 
virgin  forests  of  a  new  world  that  roll  away  to  the  shining  waters  in  the 
west  ;  and  then  we  plunge  into  their  mazes  to  hew  out  a  path  for  ourselves, 
to  slay  the  wild  beasts,  and  to  find  and  conquer  rich  lands.  But  soon  we 
discover  what  hard  work  the  march  is,  and  what  monsters  lurk  in  the  leafy 
coverts,  and  diseases  hover  among  the  marshes,  and  how  short  a  distance 
ahead  we  can  see,  and  how  far  off  it  is  to  the  treasure-cities  we  dreamed  of; 
and  if  at  last  we  gain  some  cleared  spot  whence  we  can  look  forward,  our 
weary  eyes  are  searching  at  most  for  a  place  of  rest,  and  all  our  hopes  have 
dwindled  to  hopes  of  safety  and  repose.  If  you  have  God  for  your  "  en- 
during substance,"  you  can  face  all  varieties  of  condition,  and  be  calm, 
saying, 

"Give  wh.nt  Thou  canst,  without  Thee  I  am  poor, 
And  with  Thee  rich  ;  take  whut  Thou  wilt  away." 

The  amulet  that  charms  away  disquiet  lies  here. 

10 


HIDDEN    FROM    THE    WISE    AND    PRUDENT. 

/  thank  Thee,  O  Father,  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth,  that  Thou  didst  hidi 
these  things  from  the  wise  and  understanding,  and  didst  reveal  them  unto 
babes. — Matt.  xi.  25,  26. 

There  is  no  royal  road  into  the  sweetness  and  the  depth  of 
January  11.  (^j^j-jsfs  love  for  the  wise  or  the  prudent.  The  understanding 
is  no  more  the  organ  for  apprehending  the  love  of  Christ  than  is  the  ear 
the  organ  for  perceiving  light,  or  the  heart  the  organ  for  learning  mathe- 
matics. Blessed  be  God  !  the  highest  gifts  are  not  bestowed  upon  the 
clever  people,  on  the  men  of  genius  and  the  gifted  ones,  on  the  cultivated 
and  the  refined, — but  they  are  open  for  all  men ;  and  when  we  say  that  love 
is  the  parent  of  knowledge,  and  that  the  condition  of  knowing  the  depths  of 
Christ's  heart  is  simple  love,  which  is  the  child  of  faith,  we  are  only  saying 
in  other  words  what  the  Master  embodied  in  His  thanksgiving  prayer, 
•'  I  thank  Thee,  Father  !  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth,  because  Thou  hast 
hid  these  things  from  the  wise  and  prudent,  and  hast  revealed  them  unto 
babes." 

And  that  is  so,  not  because  Christianity,  being  a  foolish  system,  can 
only  address  itself  to  fools  ;  not  because  Christianity,  contradicting  wisdom, 
cannot  expect  to  be  received  by  the  wise  and  the  cultured, — but  because  a 
man's  brains  have  as  little  to  do  with  his  acceptance  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ  as  a  man's  eyes  have  to  do  with  his  capacity  of  hearing  a  voice. 
Therefore,  seeing  that  the  wise  and  prudent,  and  the  cultured,  and  the 
clever,  and  the  men  of  genius  are  always  the  minority  of  the  race,  let  us 
vulgar  folk,  that  are  neither  wise,  nor  clever,  nor  cultured,  nor  geniuses, 
be  thankful  that  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  our  power  of  knowing  and 
possessing  the  best  wisdom  and  the  highest  treasures  ;  but  that  upon  this 
path  the  wayfaring  man,  though  a  fool,  shall  not  err,  and  all  narrow  fore- 
heads and  limited  understandings,  and  poor,  simple,  uneducated  people, 
as  well  as  philosophers  and  geniuses,  have  to  learn  of  their  hearts  and 
not  of  their  heads,  and,  by  a  sense  of  need  and  a  humble  trust  and  a  daily 
experience,  have  to  appropriate  and  suck  out  the  blessings  that  lie  in  the 
love  of  Jesus  Christ.  Blessed  be  His  name  !  The  end  of  all  aristocracies 
of  culture  and  superciliousness  of  intellect  lies  in  that  great  truth,  that  we 
possess  the  deepest  knowledge  and  the  highest  wisdom  when  we  love  and 
by  our  love. 

There  is  no  true  wisdom  .vhich  does  not  rest  calmly  upon  a  basis  of 
truthfulness  of  heart,  and  is  not  guarded  and  nurtured  by  righteousness  and 
purity  of  life.  Man  is  one — one  and  indissoluble.  The  intellect  and  the 
conscience  are  but  two  names  for  diverse  parts  of  the  one  human  being, 
or  rather  they  are  but  two  names  for  diverse  workings  of  one  immortal  soul. 
And  though  it  be  possible  that  a  man  may  be  enriched  with  all  earthly 
knowledge,  whilst  his  heart  is  the  dwelling-place  of  all  corruption  ;  and 
that,  on  the  other  hand,  a  man  may  be  pure  and  upright  in  heart,  whilst 
his  head  is  very  poorly  furnished  and  his  understanding  very  weak — 3^et 
these  exceptional  cases  do  not  touch  the  great  central  truth,  *'  The  fear  of 
the  Lord  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom,  and  the  knowledge  of  the  Holy  is 
understanding." 

XI 


THE   MANIFESTED   LOVE   OF  THE   CHRIST. 

It  is  Jiigh  as  heaven;  what  canst  ihou  do?  Deeper  than  Shcol ;  what 
canst  thou  know  ?  The  measure  thereof  is  longer  than  the  earth,  and 
broader  than  the  sea. — Job  xi.  8  9. 

-  ,„    We  have  no  measure  by  which  we  can  translate  into  the  terms 

'  of  our  experience,  and  so  bring  within  the  grasp  of  our  minds, 
what  was  the  depth  of  the  step  which  Christ  took  at  the  impulse  of  His 
love,  from  the  Throne  to  the  Cross.  We  know  not  what  He  forewent  ; 
we  know  not,  nor  ever  shall  know,  what  depths  of  darkness  and  soul- 
agony  He  passed  through  at  the  bidding  of  His  all-enduring  love  to  us. 
Nor  do  we  know  the  consequences  of  that  great  work  of  emptying  Himself 
of  His  glory.  We  have  no  means  by  which  we  can  estimate  the  darkness 
and  the  depth  of  the  misery  from  which  we  have  been  delivered,  nor  the 
height  and  the  radiance  of  the  glory  to  which  we  are  to  be  lifted.  And 
until  we  can  tell  and  measure  by  our  compasses  both  of  these  two  extremes 
of  possible  human  fate,  till  we  have  gone  down  into  the  deepest  abyss  of  a 
bottomless  pit  of  growing  alienation  and  misery,  and  up  above  the  highest 
reach  of  all  unending  progress  into  light  and  glory  and  God-likeness,  we 
have  not  stretched  our  compasses  wide  enough  to  touch  the  two  poles  of 
this  great  sphere — the  infinite  love  of  Jesus  Christ.  So  we  bow  before  it: 
we  know  if  we  possess  it  with  a  knowledge  more  sure  and  certain,  more 
deep  and  valid,  than  our  knowledge  of  all  but  ourselves  ;  but  yet  it  is 
beyond  our  grasp,  and  towers  above  us  inaccessible  in  the  altitude  of  its 
glory,  and  keeps  beneath  us  in  the  profundity  of  its  condescension. 

And,  in  like  manner,  this  known  love  passes  knowledge,  inasmuch  as 
with  all  our  experience  of  it,  our  experience  is  but  a  little  of  it.  We  are 
like  the  settlers  on  some  great  island  continent — as,  for  instance,  on  the 
Australian  continent,  for  many  years  after  its  first  discovery — a  thin  fringe 
of  population  round  the  seaboard,  here  and  there,  and  all  the  great  reach 
within,  the  bosom  of  the  land,  untraversed  and  unknown.  So,  after  all 
experience  of  the  love  of  Jesus  Christ,  we  have  but  skimmed  the  surface, 
but  touched  the  edges,  but  received,  filtered  as  it  were,  a  drop  of  what,  if  it 
should  come  upon  us  in  fulness  of  flood,  like  a  Niagara  of  love,  would 
overwhelm  our  spirits.  So  we  have  within  our  reach  not  only  the  sorrow 
of  limited  affections  which  bring  gladness  into  life  when  they  come,  and 
darkness  over  it  when  they  depart  ;  we  have  not  only  human  love  which, 
if  I  may  so  say,  is  always  lifting  its  finger  to  its  lips  in  the  act  of  bidding 
us  adieu  ; — but  love  which  will  abide  with  us  for  ever.  Men  die  ;  Christ 
lives.  We  can  exhaust  men  ;  we  cannot  exhaust  Christ.  We  can  follow 
ether  objects  of  pursuit,  all  of  which  have  limitation  to  their  power  of 
satisfying,  and  fall  upon  the  jaded  sense  sooner  or  later,  or  sooner  or 
later  are  wrenched  away  from  the  aching  heart.  But  here  is  a  love  into 
which  we  can  penetrate  very  deep  and  fear  no  exhaustion  ;  a  sea,  if  I  may 
so  say,  into  which  we  can  cast  ourselves,  nor  dread  that  like  some  rash 
diver  flinging  himself  into  shallow  water  where  he  thought  there  was 
depth,  we  may  be  bruised  and  wounded,  but  we  may  find  in  Christ  the 
endless  love  that  an  immortal  heart  requires. 

13 


SECRET  DISCIPLESHIP. 

And  after  this  Joseph  of  Ariniathea,  being  a  disciple  of  Jesus,  but  secretly, 
for  fear  of  the  Jeivs,  asked  of  Pilate  that  he  might  take  away  the  body  oj 
Jesus ;  .  .  .  and  there  came  also  Nicodemus,  he  who  at  the  ^rst  came  to 
Jesus  by  night. — John  xix.  38,  39, 

_  j„   While  Christ  lived,  Joseph  of  Arimathea  and  Nicodemns  had 

^  '  been  unfaithful  to  their  convictions  ;  but  His  death,  which 
terrified  and  paralysed  and  scattered  His  avowed  disciples,  seems  to  have 
shamed  and  stung  them  into  courage.  They  came  now,  when  they  must 
have  known  that  it  was  too  late  to  lavish  honour  and  tears  on  the  corpse 
of  the  Master  whom  they  had  been  too  cowardly  to  acknowledge  whilst 
acknowledgment  might  yet  have  availed.  How  keen  an  arrow  of  self- 
condemnation  must  have  pierced  their  hearts  as  they  moved  in  their  offices 
of  love,  which  they  thought  He  could  never  know,  round  His  dead  corpse  ! 

They  were  both  members  of  the  Sanhedrim  :  the  same  motives,  no  doubt, 
had  withheld  each  of  them  from  confessing  Christ ;  the  same  impulses 
united  them  in  this  too  late  confession  of  discipleship.  Nicodemus  had  had 
the  conviction,  at  the  beginning  of  Christ's  ministry,  that  he  was  at  least  a 
miraculously  attested  and  God-sent  teacher.  But  the  fear  which  made  him 
steal  to  Jesus  by  night — the  unenviable  distinction  which  the  Evangelist 
pitilessly  reiterates  at  each  mention  of  him — arrested  his  growth,  and  kept 
him  dumb  when  silence  was  treason. 

Joseph  of  Arimathea  is  described  by  two  of  the  Evangelists  as  "  a 
disciple  "  ;  by  the  other  two  as  a  devout  Israelite,  like  Simeon  and  Anna, 
"  waiting  for  the  Kingdom  of  God."  Luke  informs  us  that  he  had  not 
concurred  in  the  condemnation  of  Jesus,  but  leads  us  to  believe  that  his 
dissent  had  been  merely  silent.  Perhaps  he  was  more  fully  convinced  than 
Nicodemus,  and  at  the  same  time  even  more  timid  in  avowing  his  convic- 
tions. These  two  contrite  cowards,  as  the}'  tr}'  to  atone  for  their  unfaith- 
fulness to  their  living  Master  by  their  ministrations  to  Him  dead,  are  true 
examples  of  secret  disciples.  They  were  restrained  from  the  avowal  of  the 
Messiahship  of  Jesus  by  fear.  There  is  nothing  in  the  organisation  of 
society  at  this  day  to  make  any  man  afraid  of  avowing  the  ordinary  kind 
of  Christianity  which  satisfies  the  most  of  us  ;  rather  it  js  the  proper  thing 
with  most  of  us  middle-class  people  to  say  that  in  some  sense  or  other  we 
are  Christians.  But  when  it  comes  to  a  real  avowal,  a  real  carrying  out  of 
a  true  discipleship,  there  are  as  many  and  as  formidable,  though  very 
different,  impediments  in  the  way  to-day  from  those  which  blocked 
the  path  of  these  two  cowards.  In  all  regions  of  life  it  is  hard  to  work 
out  into  practice  any  moral  conviction  whatever.  How  many  of  us  are 
there  who  have  beliefs  about  social  and  moral  questions  which  we  are 
ashamed  to  avow  in  certain  companies  for  fear  of  the  finger  of  ridicule 
being  pointed  at  us?  It  is  not  only  in  the  Church,  and  in  reference 
to  purely  religious  belief,  that  we  have  the  curse  of  secret  discipleship,  but 
it  is  everywhere.  Wherever  there  are  moral  questions  which  are  yet  the 
subject  of  controversy,  and  have  not  been  enthroned  with  the  hallelujahs  of 
all  men,  you  get  people  that  carry  their  convictions  shut  up  in  their  own 
breasts,  and  lock  their  lips  in  silence,  when  there  is  most  need  of  frank 
avowal.  The  political,  social,  and  moral  conflicts  of  this  day  have  their 
"  secret  disciples,"  who  will  come  only  out  of  their  holes  when  the  battle  is 
over,  and  will  then  shout  with  the  loudest. 

13 


THE  CAUSES   OF  SECRET  DISCIPLESHIP. 

Can  any  hide  himself  in  secret  places,  that  I  shall  not  see  him?  saith 
the  Lord.    Do  not  I  fill  heaven  and  earth  ?  saith  the  Lord. — Jer.  xxiii.  24. 

In  a  society  like  ours,  in  which  the  influence  of  Christian 
January  .  ^^^^y^^y  affects  a  great  many  people  who  have  no  personal 
connection  with  Christ,  it  is  not  always  enough  that  the  life  should  preach, 
because  over  a  very  large  field  of  ordinary  daily  life  the  underground 
influence,  so  to  speak,  of  Christian  ethics  has  infiltrated  and  penetrated,  so 
that  many  a  tree  bears  a  greener  leaf  because  of  the  water  that  has  found 
its  way  to  it  from  the  river,  though  it  be  planted  far  from  its  banks.  Even 
those  who  are  not  Christians  live  outward  lives  largely  regulated  by 
Christian  principle.  The  whole  level  of  morality  has  been  heaved  up,  as 
the  coast  line  has  sometimes  been  by  hidden  fires  slowly  working,  by  the 
imperceptible  gradual  influence  of  the  Gospel. 

So  it  needs  sometimes  that  you  should  say,  "  I  am  a  Christian,"  as  well 
as  that  you  should  live  like  one.  Ask  yourselves,  dear  friends,  whether 
you  have  buttoned  your  great  coats  over  your  uniforms,  that  nobody  may 
know  whose  soldier  you  are.  Ask  yourselves  whether  you  have  sometimes 
held  your  tongues  because  you  knew  that  if  you  spoke,  people  would  find 
out  where  you  came  from  and  what  country  you  belonged  to.  Ask  yourselves 
have  you  ever  accompanied  the  witness  of  your  lives  v/ith  the  commentary 
of  your  confession  ?  Did  you  ever,  anywhere  but  in  a  church,  stand  up 
and  say,  "  I  believe  in  Jesus  Christ,  His  only  Son,  my  Lord?" 

And  then  ask  yourselves  another  question  :  Have  you  ever  dared  to 
be  singular  ?  We  are  all  of  us  in  this  world  often  thrust  into  circumstances 
in  which  it  is  needful  that  we  should  say,  "So  do  not  I  because  of  the 
fear  of  the  Lord."  Boys  go  to  school.  They  used  always  to  kneel  down 
at  their  bedsides  and  say  their  prayers  when  they  were  at  home  ;  they 
do  not  like  to  do  it  with  all  those  critical  and  cruel  eyes— and  there  are 
no  eyes  more  critical  and  more  cruel  than  young  eyes— fixed  upon  them  ; 
and  so  they  give  up  prayer.  A  young  man  comes  to  ^Lanchester,  goes 
into  a  warehouse,  pure  of  life,  and  with  a  tongue  that  has  not  blossomed 
into  rank  fruit  of  obscenity  and  blasphemy.  And  he  hears  at  the  next 
desk  there,  words  that  first  of  all  bring  a  blush  to  his  cheek,  and  he  is 
tempted  into  conduct  that  he  knows  to  be  a  denial  of  his  Master.  And  he 
covers  up  his  principles,  and  goes  with  the  tempters  into  evil.  I  might 
sketch  a  dozen  other  cases,  but  I  need  not.  In  one  form  or  other  we 
have  all  to  go  through  the  same  ordeal.  We  have  sometimes  to  dare 
to  be  in  a  minority  of  one,  if  we  will  not  be  untrue  to  our  Master  and 
to  ours  el  ve ;. 

14 


REASONS   FOR  UNFAITHFULNESS. 

It  is  required  in  stewards,  thai  a  man  be  found  faithful. — I  Cor.  iv.  2. 

J  -g     The  reasons  for  the  unfaithfulness  of  Joseph  of  Arimathea 

'  and  Nicodemus  are  put  by  John  in  a  very  blunt  fashion  : 
**for  fear  of  the  Jews."  That  is  not  what  we  say  to  ourselves  ;  some  of  us 
say,  "Oh!  I  have  got  beyond  outward  organisations.  I  find  it  enough 
to  be  united  to  Christ.  The  Chrisiian  communities  are  very  imperfect : 
there  is  not  any  of  them  that  I  quite  see  eye  to  eye  with  ;  so  I  stand 
apart,  contemplating  all,  and  happy  in  my  unsectarianism."  Yes  !  I  quite 
admit  the  faults,  and  suppose  that  as  long  as  men  think  at  all,  they  will 
not  find  any  church  which  is  entirely  to  their  mind  ;  and  I  rejoice  to  think 
that  some  day  we  shall  all  outgrow  visible  organisations — when  we  get 
there  where  the  seer  "saw  no  temple  therein."  Admitting  all  that,  I 
also  know  that  isolation  is  always  weakness,  and  that  if  a  man  stand  apart 
from  the  wholesome  friction  of  his  brethren,  he  will  get  to  be  a  great 
diseased  mass  of  oddities,  of  very  little  use  either  to  himself  or  to  men  or 
to  God.  It  is  not  a  good  thing  on  the  whole  that  people  should  fight  for 
their  own  hands  ;  and  the  wisest  thing  any  of  us  can  do  is,  preserving  our 
freedom  of  opinion,  to  link  ourselves  with  some  body  of  Chrisiian  people, 
and  to  find  in  them  our  shelter  and  our  home.  But  these  two  were  moved 
by  "fear."  They  dreaded  ridicule,  the  loss  of  position,  the  expulsion 
from  Sanhedrim  and  synagogue,  social  ostracism,  and  all  the  armoury  oi 
ofrensive  weapons  which  would  have  been  used  against  them  by  their 
colleagues. 

So  with  us,  the  fear  of  loss  of  position  comes  into  play.  I  have  heard 
of  people  saying,  "Oh  !  we  cannot  attach  ourselves  to  such  and  such  a 
community  ;  there  is  no  society  for  the  children."  Then,  many  of  us  are 
very  much  afraid  of  being  laughed  at.  Ridicule,  I  think,  to  sensitive 
people,  in  a  generation  like  ours,  is  pretty  nearly  as  bad  as  the  old  rack 
and  the  physical  torments  of  martyrdom.  We  have  all  got  so  nervous  and 
high-strung  nowadays,  and  depend  so  much  upon  other  people's  good 
opinion,  that  it  is  a  dreadful  thing  to  be  ridiculed.  Timid  people  do  not 
come  to  the  front  and  say  what  they  believe  and  take  up  unpopular 
causes,  because  they  cannot  bear  to  be  pointed  at  and  pelted  with  the 
abundant  epithets  of  disparagement  which  are  always  flung  at  earnest 
people  who  will  not  worship  at  the  appointed  shrines,  and  have  sturdy 
convictions  of  their  own. 

Ridicule  breaks  no  bones.  It  has  no  power,  if  you  make  up  your  mind 
that  it  shall  not  have.  Face  it,  and  it  will  only  be  unpleasant  for  a 
moment  at  first.  When  a  child  goes  into  the  water  to  bathe,  he  is  un- 
comfortable till  his  head  has  been  fairly  under  water,  and  then,  after  that, 
he  is  all  right.  So  it  is  with  the  ridicule  which  out-and-out  Christian 
faithfulness  may  bring  on  us.  It  only  hurts  at  the  beginning,  and  people 
very  soon  get  tired.  Face  your  fears,  and  they  wall  pass  away.  It  is  not 
perhaps  a  good  advice  to  give  unconditionally,  but  it  is  a  very  good  one 
in  regard  of  all  moral  questions.  Always  do  what  you  ai'e  afraid  to  do. 
In  nine  cases  out  of  ten  it  will  l^e  the  right  thing  to  do.  If  people  would 
only  discount  "the  fear  of  men  v/bich  bringeth  a  snare"  by  making  up 
their  minds  to  it,  there  would  be  fewer  dumb  dogs  and  secret  disciples 
haunting  and  weakening  the  Church  of  Christ. 

15 


THE   MISERIES   OF   SECRET   DISCIPLESHIP. 

And  the  children  of  Israel  did  secretly  things  that  were  not  right  against 
the  Lord  their  God. — 2  KiNGS  xvii.  9. 

How  much  Joseph  of  Arimathea  and  Nicodemus  lost  ! — all 
'  those  three  years  of  communion  with  the  Master  ;  all  His 
teaching,  all  the  stimulus  of  His  example,  all  the  joy  of  fellowship  with 
Him  !  They  might  have  had  a  treasure  in  their  memories  that  would  have 
enriched  them  for  all  their  days,  and  they  had  flung  it  all  away  because 
they  were  afraid  of  the  curled  lip  of  a  long-bearded  Pharisee  or  two. 

And  so  it  always  is,  the  secret  disciple  diminishes  his  communion  with 
his  Master.  It  is  the  valleys  which  lay  their  bosoms  open  to  the  sun  that 
rejoice  in  the  light  and  warmth  ;  the  narrow  clefts  in  the  rocks  that  shut 
themselves  grudgingly  up  against  the  light,  are  all  dank  and  dark  and 
dismal.  And  it  is  the  men  that  conie  and  avow  their  discipleship  that  will 
have  the  truest  communion  with  their  Lord.  Any  neglected  duty  puts  a 
film  between  a  man  and  his  Saviour  ;  any  conscious  neglect  of  duty  piles 
up  a  wall  between  you  and  Christ.  Be  sure  of  this,  that  if  from  cowardly 
or  from  selfish  regard  to  position  and  advantages,  or  any  other  motive,  we 
stand  apart  from  Him,  and  have  our  lips  locked  when  we  ought  to  speak, 
there  will  steal  over  our  hearts  a  coldness  :  His  face  will  be  averted  from 
us,  and  our  eyes  will  not  dare  to  seek,  with  the  same  confidence  and  joy, 
the  light  of  Plis  countenance. 

What  you  lose  by  unfaithful  wrapping  of  your  convictions  in  a  napkin, 
and  burying  them  in  the  ground,  is  the  joyful  use  of  the  convictions,  the 
deeper  hold  of  the  truth  by  which  you  live  and  before  which  you  bow,  and 
the  true  fellowship  with  the  Master  whom  you  acknowledge  and  confess. 
And  when  these  men  came  to  Christ's  corpse,  and  bore  it  away,  what  a 
sharp  pang  went  through  their  hearts  !  They  woke  at  last  to  know  what 
cowardly  traitors  they  had  been.  If  you  are  a  disciple  at  all,  and  a  secret 
one,  you  will  awake  to  know  what  you  have  been  doing,  and  the  pang  will 
be  a  sharp  one.  If  you  do  not  awake  in  this  life,  then  the  distance  between 
you  and  your  Lord  will  become  greater  and  greater  ;  if  you  do,  then  it  will 
be  a  sad  reflection  that  there  are  years  of  treason  lying  behind  you. 
Nicodemus  and  Joseph  had  the  veil  torn  away  by  the  contemplation  of 
their  dead  Master.  You  may  have  the  veil  torn  away  from  your  eyes  by 
the  sight  of  the  throned  Lord  ;  and  when  you  pass  into  the  heavens,  may 
even  there  have  some  sharp  pang  of  condemnation  when  you  reflect  how 
unfaithful  you  have  been. 

Blessed  be  His  name  !  The  assurance  is  firm  that  if  a  man  be  a  disciple, 
he  shall  be  saved  ;  but  the  warning  is  sure  that  if  he  be  an  unfaithful  and  a 
secret  disciple,  there  will  be  a  lifelong  unfaithfulness  to  a  beloved  Master 
to  be  "  purged  a. way  so  as  by  tire." 

16 


THE  CURE   OF  SECRET  DISCIPLESHIP. 

Then  shall  the  lame  man  leap  as  a  hart,  and  the  tongue  of  the  dumb 
sing  ;  for  in  the  wilderness  shall  waters  break  out,  and  streams  in  the  desert. 
— Is  A.  XXXV.  6. 

January  17  JOSEPH  of  Arimathea  and  Nicodemus  learned  to  be  ashamed 
*  of  their  cowardice,  and  their  dumb  lips  learned  to  speak,  and 
their  shy,  hidden  love  forced  for  itself  a  channel  by  which  it  could  flow  out 
into  the  light  ;  because  of  Christ's  death.  And  in  another  fashion  that 
same  death  and  Cross  is  for  us,  too,  the  cure  of  all  cowardice  and  selfish 
silence.  The  sight  of  Christ's  Cross  makes  the  coward  brave.  It  was  no 
small  piece  of  courage  for  Joseph  to  go  to  Pilate  and  avow  his  sympathy 
with  a  condemned  criminal.  The  love  must  have  been  very  true  which 
was  forced  to  speak  by  disaster  and  death.  And  to  us  the  strongest 
motive  for  stiffening  our  vacillating  timidity  into  an  iron  fortitude,  and 
fortifying  us  far  above  the  fear  of  what  man  can  do  to  us,  is  to  be  found  in 
gazing  upon  His  dying  love  who  met  and  conquered  all  evils  and  terrors 
for  our  sakes. 

That  Cross  will  kindle  a  love  which  will  not  rest  concealed,  but  will  be 
**like  the  ointment  of  the  right  hand  which  bewrayeth  itself."  I  can  fancy 
men  to  whom  Christ  is  only  what  He  was  to  Nicodemus  at  first,  "a 
teacher  sent  from  God,"  occupying  Nicodemus"s  position  of  hidden  belief  in 
His  teaching,  without  feeling  any  need  to  avow  themselves  His  followers  ; 
but  if  once  into  our  souls  there  has  come  the  constraining  and  the  melting 
influence  of  that  great  and  wondrous  love  which  died  for  us,  then,  dear 
brethren,  it  is  unnatural  that  we  should  be  silent.  If  those  for  whom 
Christ  has  died  should  hold  their  peace,  the  stones  would  immediately  cry 
out.  That  death,  wondrous,  mysterious,  terrible,  but  radiant  and  glorious 
with  hope,  with  pardon,  with  holiness  for  us  and  for  all  the  world, — that 
death  smites  on  the  chords  of  our  hearts,  if  I  may  so  speak,  and  brings  out 
music  from  them  all. 

The  sight  of  the  Cross  not  only  leads  to  courage,  and  kindles  a  love 
which  demands  expression,  but  it  impels  to  joyful  surrender.  Joseph  gave 
a  place  in  his  own  new  tomb,  where  he  hoped  that  one  day  his  bones 
should  be  laid  by  the  side  of  the  Master  against  whom  he  had  sinned — for 
he  had  no  thought  of  a  resurrection.  Nicodemus  brought  a  lavish,  almost 
an  extravagant,  amount  of  costly  spices,  as  if  by  honour  to  the  dead  he 
could  atone  for  treason  to  the  living.  And  both  the  one  and  the  other 
teach  us  that  if  once  we  gain  the  true  vision  of  that  great  and  wondrous 
love  that  died  on  the  Cross  for  us,  then  the  natural  language  of  the  loving 
heart  is — 

"  Here,  Lord  !  I  give  mysef  away ; 
'Tis  all  that  I  can  do." 

If  following  Him  openly  involves  sacrifices,  the  sacrifices  will  be  sweet, 
so  long  as  our  hearts  look  to  PJis  dying  love.  All  love  delights  in  expres- 
sion, and  most  of  all  in  expression  by  surrender  of  precious  things,  which 
are  most  precious  because  they  give  love  materials  which  it  may  lay  at  the 
beloved's  feet.  What  are  position,  possessions,  reputation,  capacities, 
perils,  losses,  self,  but  the  sweet  spices  which  we  are  blessed  enough  to  be 
able  to  lay  upon  the  alt3.r  which  glorifies  the  giver  and  the  gift  ?  The  con- 
templation of  Christ's  sacrifice — and  that  alone— will  so  overcome  our 
natural  selfishness  as  to  make  sacrifice  for  His  dear  sake  most  blessed. 

17  C 


THE    MARK    OF    THE    BEAST. 
Whatsoever  a  man  soweth,  that  shall  he  also  reap. — Gal.  vi,  7. 

Wherever  a  human  nature  is  self-centred,  God-forgetting, 
and  therefore  God-opposing  (for  whoever  forgets  God  defies 
Him),  that  nature  has  gone  down  below  humanity,  and  has  touched  the 
lower  level  of  the  brutes. 

Men  are  so  made  as  that  they  must  either  rise  to  the  level  of  God  or 
certainly  go  down  to  the  level  of  the  brute.  And  wherever  you  get  men 
living  by  their  own  fancies,  for  their  own  pleasure,  in  forgetfulness  and 
neglect  of  the  sweet  and  mystic  bonds  that  should  knit  them  to  God,  there 
you  get  **  the  image  of  the  beast  and  the  number  of  his  name." 

And  besides  that  godless  selfishness,  we  may  point  to  simple  animalism 
as  literally  the  mark  of  the  beast.  He  who  lives  not  by  conscience  and  by 
faith,  but  by  fleshly  inclination  and  sense,  lowers  himself  to  the  level  of  the 
instinctive  brute-life,  and  beneath  it,  because  he  refuses  to  obey  faculties 
which  they  do  not  possess ;  and  what  is  nature  in  them  is  degradation  in  us. 

Look  at  the  unblushing  sensuality  which  marks  many  "  respectable 
people"  nowadays.  Look  at  the  foul  fieshliness  of  much  of  popular  art 
and  poetry.  Look  at  the  way  in  which  pure  animal  passion,  the  lust  of 
the  flesh,  and  the  lust  of  the  eye,  and  the  love  of  good  things  to  eat, 
and  plenty  to  drink,  is  swaying  and  destroying  men  and  women  by  the 
thousand  among  us.  Look  at  the  thin  veneer  of  culture  over  the  ugliest 
lust.  Scratch  the  gentleman,  and  you  find  the  satyr.  Is  it  much  of  an 
exaggeration,  in  view  of  the  facts  of  English  life  to-day,  to  say  that  all  the 
world  wanders  after  and  worships  this  beast  ? 

Sin  is  like  a  great  forest-tree  that  we  may  sometimes  see  standing  up  in 
its  leafy  beauty,  and  spreading  a  broad  shadow  over  half  a  field  ;  but  when  we 
get  round  on  the  other  side,  there  is  a  great,  dark  hollow  in  the  very  heart  of 
it,  and  corruption  is  at  work  there.  It  is  like  the  poison-tree  in  travellers' 
stories,  tempting  weary  men  to  rest  beneath  its  thick  foliage,  and  insinuating 
death  into  the  limbs  that  relax  in  the  fatal  coolness  of  its  shade.  It  is  hke 
the  apples  of  Sodom,  fair  to  look  upon,  but  turning  to  acrid  ashes  on 
the  unwary  lips.  When  we  come  to  grasp  the  sweet  thing  that  we  have 
been  tempted  to  seize,  there  is  a  serpent  that  stands  up  amongst  all  the 
flowers. 

The  message  of  love  can  never  come  into  a  human  soul,  and  pass  away 
from  it  unreceived,  v.'ithout  leaving  that  spirit  worse,  with  all  its  lowest 
characteristics  strengthened,  and  ail  its  best  ones  depressed,  by  the  fact  of 
rejection.  If  there  were  no  judgment  at  all,  the  natural  result  of  the  simple 
rejection  of  the  Gospel  is  that,  bit  by  bit,  all  the  lingering  remains  of  noble- 
ness that  hover  about  the  man,  like  scent  about  a  broken  vase,  shall  pass 
away  ;  and  that,  step  by  step,  through  the  simple  process  of  saying,  "  I  will 
not  have  Christ  to  rule  over  me,"  the  whole  being  shall  degenerate,  until 
manhood  becomes  devilhood,  and  the  soul  is  lost  by  its  own  want  of  faith. 

18 


THE   MERCY  OF  GOD. 
*'  Thy  ntercy,  O  Lord,  is  in  the  heavens.'* — PsAi.M  xxxvi.  ^, 

January  19.  **  Mercy  "  or  "  loving-kindness  "  in  the  Old  Testament  is 
'  very  nearly  equivalent  to  the  New  Testament  "love";  or 
perhaps  still  more  nearly  equivalent  to  the  New  Testament  "grace." 
Both  the  one  and  the  other  mean  substantially  this — active  love  communi- 
cating itself  to  the  creatures  that  are  inferior  and  that  might  have  expected 
something  else  to  befall  them.  Mercy  is  a  modification  of  love,  inasmuch 
as  it  is  love  to  an  inferior.  The  hand  is  laid  gently  upon  the  man,  because 
if  it  was  laid  with  all  its  weight  it  would  crush  him.  It  is  the  stooping 
goodness  of  a  king  to  a  beggar. 

And  mercy  is  likewise  love,  in  its  exercise  to  persons  that  might  expect 
something  else,  being  guilty.  As  a  general  coming  to  a  body  of  mutineers 
with  pardon  and  favour  upon  his  lips,  instead  of  with  condemnation  and 
death  ;  so  God  comes  to  us,  forgiving  and  blessing.  All  His  goodness  is 
forbearance,  and  His  love  is  mercy,  because  of  the  weakness,  the  lowliness, 
and  the  ill  desert  of  us  on  whom  the  love  falls.  All  the  attributes  of  the 
Divine  nature,  all  the  operations  of  the  Divine  hand,  lie  within  the  circle 
of  His  mercy — like  a  diamond  set  in  a  golden  ring.  Mercy,  or  love,  flow- 
ing out  in  blessings  to  inferior  and  guilty  creatures  is  the  root  and  ground 
of  all  God's  character  ;  it  is  the  foundation  and  impulse  of  all  His  acts. 
Modern  science  reduces  all  modes  of  physical  energy  to  one,  for  which  it 
has  no  name  but — energy.  We  are  taught  by  God's  own  revelation  of 
Plimself — and  most  especially  by  His  final  and  perfect  revelation  of  Him- 
self in  Jesus  Christ — to  trace  all  forms  of  Divine  energy  back  to  one  which 
David  calls  mercy,  which  John  calls  love. 

It  is  last  as  well  as  first,  the  final  upshot  of  all  revelation.  The  last 
voice  that  speaks  from  Scripture  has  for  its  special  message  "  God  is  love." 
The  last  voice  that  sounds  from  the  completed  history  of  the  world  will 
have  the  same  message,  and  the  ultimate  word  of  all  revelation,  the 
end  of  the  whole  majestic  unfolding  of  God's  purposes,  will  be  the  pro- 
clamation to  the  four  corners  of  the  universe,  as  from  the  trump  of  the 
Archangel,  of  the  name  of  God  as  Love. 

The  northern  and  the  southern  pole  of  the  great  sphere  are  one  and 
the  same,  a  straight  axle  through  the  very  heart  of  it,  from  which  the 
bounding  lines  swell  out  to  the  equator,  and  towards  which  they  converge 
again  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  world.  So  mercy  is  the  strong  axletree, 
the  northern  pole  and  the  southern,  on  which  the  whole  world  of  the  Divine 
perfections  revolves  and  moves. 

"Thy  mercy  is  in  the  heavens,"  towering  up  above  the  stars,  and 
dwelling  there,  like  some  Divine  asther,  filling  all  space.  The  heavens  are 
the  home  of  light,  the  source  of  every  blessing,  arching  over  every  head, 
rimming  every  horizon,  holding  all  the  stars,  opening  into  abysses  as  we 
gaze,  with  us  by  night  and  by  day,  undimmed  by  the  mist  and  smoke  of 
earth,  unchanged  by  the  lapse  of  centuries,  ever  seen,  never  reached, 
bending  over  us  always,  always  far  above  us. 

And  so  the  mercy  of  God  towers  above  us,  and  stoops  down  towards  us  ; 
rims  us  all  about,  and  arches  over  us  all ;  sheds  down  its  dewy  benedictions 
by  night  and  by  day  ;  is  filled  with  a  million  stars,  and  light  points  of  beauty 
and  of  splendour  ;  is  near  us  ever  to  bless  and  succour,  to  help,  and  holds 
us  all  in  its  blue  round. 

19 


GOD'S  FAITHFULNESS. 

Thy  faithfulness  reacheth  unto  the  clouds. — PsALM  xxxvi.  5. 

God's  faithfulness  is  in  its  narrowest  sense  His  adherence  to 
January  20.  ^^^.^  promises.  It  implies,  in  that  sense,  a  verbal  revelation, 
and  definite  words  from  Him  pledging  Him  to  a  certain  line  of  action. 
"  He  hath  said,  and  shall  He  not  do  it  ?"  He  will  not  alter  the  thing  that 
is  gone  out  of  His  lips.  It  is  only  a  God  who  has  actually  spoken  to  men 
who  can  be  a  "faithful  God."  He  will  not  palter  with  a  double  sense, 
keeping  His  word  of  promise  to  the  ear,  and  breaking  it  to  the  hope. 

But  not  only  His  articulate  promises,  but  also  His  own  past  actions,  bind 
Him.  He  is  always  true  to  these,  and  not  only  continues  to  do  as  He  has 
done,  but  discharges  every  obligation  which  His  past  imposes  on  Him. 
The  ostrich  was  said  to  leave  its  eggs  to  be  hatched  in  the  sand  ;  men  bring 
men  into  positions  of  dependence,  and  then  lightly  shake  the  responsibility 
from  careless  shoulders.  But  God  accepts  the  cares  laid  upon  Him  by  His 
own  acts,  and  discharges  them  to  the  last  farthing.  He  is  a  "faithful 
Creator."  Creation  brings  obligations  with  it  ;  obligations  on  the  creature  ; 
obligations  on  the  Creator.  If  God  makes  a  being,  God  is  bound  to  take  care 
of  the  being  that  He  has  made.  If  He  makes  a  being  in  a  given  fashion.  He 
is  bound  to  provide  for  the  necessities  that  He  has  created.  According  to 
the  old  proverb,  "if  He  makes  mouths,  it  is  His  business  to  feed  them.'* 
And  He  recognises  the  obligation.  His  past  binds  Him  to  certain  conduct 
in  His  future.  We  can  lay  hold  on  the  former  manifestation,  and  we  can 
plead  it  with  Him.  "  Thou  hast  been,  and  therefore  Thou  must  be." 
"Thou  has  taught  me  to  trust  in  Thee  ;  vindicate  and  warrant  my  trust  by 
Thy  unchangeableness "  So  His  word,  His  acts,  and  His  own  nature 
bind  God  to  bless  and  help.  His  faithfulness  is  the  expression  of  His  un- 
changeableness.  "Because  He  could  swear  by  no  greater,  He  sware  by 
Himself." 

"  Thy  faithfulness  reacheth  to  the  clouds."  Strange  that  the  fixed  faith- 
fulness should  be  considered  with  reference  to  the  very  emblems  of  instability. 
The  clouds  are  unstable  ;  they  whirl  and  melt  and  change.  Strange  to  think 
of  the  unalterable  faithfulness  as  reaching  to  them.  May  it  not  be  that  the 
very  mutability  of  the  mutable  may  be  the  means  of  manifesting  the  unalter- 
able sameness  of  God's  faithful  purpose,  of  His  unchangeable  love,  and  of 
Ilis  ever  consistent  dealings?  May  not  the  apparent  incongruity  be  a  part 
of  the  felicity  of  the  bold  words  ?  Is  it  not  true  that  earthly  things,  as  they 
change  their  forms  and  melt  away,  leaving  no  track  behind,  phantomlike  as 
they  are,  do  still  obey  the  behests  of  that  Divine  faithfulness,  and  gather  and 
dissolve,  and  break  in  the  brief  showers  of  blessing  or  short,  sharp  crashes 
of  storm  at  the  bidding  of  that  steadfast  purpose  which  works  out  one 
unalteraljle  design  by  a  thousand  instruments,  and  changeth  all  things,  being 
itself  unchanged  ?  The  thing  that  is  eternal,  even  the  faithfulness  of  God, 
dwells  amid  it,  and  shows  itself  through  the  things  that  are  temporal,  the 
flying  clouds  of  change. 

20 


MERCY  AND   FAITHFULNESS. 

To  show  forth  Thy  loving-kindness  in  the  morning,  and  Thy  faithfulness 
every  night. — Psalm  xcii.  2. 

Weave  the  loving-kindness,  or  mercy,  and  faithfulness  of 
^  '  God  together,  and  see  what  a  strong  cord  they  are  on 
which  a  man  may  hang,  and  in  all  his  weakness  be  sure  that  it  will  never 
give  nor  break.  Mercy  might  be  transient  and  arbitrary,  but  when  you 
braid  in  "faithfulness"  along  with  it,  it  becomes  fixed  as  the  pillars  of 
Heaven,  and  immutable  as  the  throne  of  God.  Only  when  we  are  sure 
of  God's  faithfulness  can  we  lift  up  thankful  voices  to  Him,  "because  His 
mercy  endureth  for  ever."  A  despotic  monarch  may  be  all  full  of 
tenderness  at  this  moment  to  some  subject,  and  all  full  of  wrath  and 
sternness  the  next.  He  may  have  a  whim  of  favour  to-day  and  a  whim 
of  severity  to-morrow,  and  no  man  can  say,  "What  doest  thou?"  But 
God  is  not  a  despot.  He  has,  so  to  speak,  "decreed  a  constitution." 
He  has  limited  Himself  He  has  marked  out  His  path  across  the  great 
wide  region  of  possibilities  of  the  Divine  action, — He  has  buoyed  out  His 
channel  on  that  ocean  ;  and  has  declared  to  us  His  purposes. 

And  so  we  can  reckon  on  God,  as  astronomers  can  foretell  the  motions 
of  the  stars.  We  can  plead  His  faithfulness  along  with  His  love,  and  feel 
that  the  one  makes  sure  that  the  other  shall  be  from  everlasting  to  ever- 
lasting. The  next  beam  of  the  Divine  brightness  is  righteousness.  "Thy 
righteousness  is  like  the  great  mountains."  Righteousness,  not  in  its 
narrow  sense  of  stern  retribution,  which  gives  to  the  evildoer  the  punish- 
ment that  he  deserves.  There  is  no  thought  here,  whatever  there  may 
be  in  other  places  in  Scripture,  of  any  opposition  between  mercy  and 
righteousness  ;  but  the  notion  of  righteousness  here  is  a  broader  and  greater 
one.  It  is  just  this,  to  put  it  into  other  words,  that  God  has  a  law  for 
His  being  to  which  He  conforms  ;  and  that  whatsoever  things  are  fair  and 
lovely  and  good  and  pure  down  here,  those  things  are  fair  and  lovely  and 
good  and  pure  up  there  ;  that  He  is  the  archetype  of  all  excellence,  the 
ideal  of  all  moral  completeness  ;  that  we  can  know  enough  of  Him  to  be 
sure  of  this — that  what  we  call  right  He  loves,  and  that  what  we  call 
right  He  practises. 

Unless  we  have  that  for  the  very  foundation  of  our  thoughts  of  God,  we 
have  no  foundation  to  rest  on.  Unless  we  feel  and  know  "  the  Judge  of 
all  the  earth  doeth  right,"  and  is  right,  and  law  and  righteousness  have  their 
home  and  seat  in  His  bosom,  and  are  the  expression  of  His  inmost  being, 
then  I  know  not  where  our  confidence  can  be  built.  Unless  Thy  righteous- 
ness, like  the  great  mountains,  surrounds  and  guards  the  low  plain  of  our 
lives,  they  will  lie  open  to  all  foes. 

21 


THE    SEA   OF    GLASS. 

And  before  the  throne  there  was  a  sea  of  glass  like  unto  crystal. — 
Rev.  iv.  6. 

Janus,r7  22.  "^^^^  sea  of  glass  cannot  be  any  part  of  the  material  creation, 
for  the  symbolism  has  provided  for  that  otherwise.  There 
seems  to  be  but  one  explanation  of  it.  and  that  is  that  it  means  the 
aggregate  of  the  Divine  dealings.  *'  Thy  judgments  are  a  mighty  deep." 
"  Oh,  the  depth  of  the  riches,  both  of  the  wisdom  and  of  the  knowledge 
of  God  !  How  unsearchable  are  His  judgments  and  His  ways  past  finding 
out  !  "  That  great  ocean  of  the  judgment  of  God  is  crystalline — clear, 
though  it  be  deep.  Does  it  seem  so  to  us  ?  Ah  !  we  stand  before  the 
mystery  of  God's  dealings,  often  bewildered,  and  not  seldom  reluctant  to 
submit.  The  perplexity  rising  from  their  obscurity  is  ofien  almost  torture, 
and  sometimes  leads  us  into  Atheism,  or  something  like  it.  And  yet  here 
is  the  assurance  that  that  sea  is  crystal  clear  ;  and  if  we  cannot  look  to  its 
lowest  depths,  that  is  not  because  there  is  any  mud  or  foulness  there,  but 
partly  because  the  light  from  above  fails  before  it  reaches  the  abysses,  and 
partly  because  our  eyes  are  uneducated  to  search  its  depths.  In  itself  it  is 
transparent,  and  it  rises  and  falls  without  "  mire  or  dirt,"  like  the  blue 
Mediterranean  on  the  marble  cliffs  of  the  Italian  coast.  If  it  be  clear  as 
far  as  the  eye  can  see,  let  us  trust  that  beyond  the  reach  of  the  eye  the 
clearness  is  the  same. 

And  it  is  a  crystal  ocean  as  being  calm.  They  who  stand  there  have 
gotten  the  victory  and  bear  the  image  of  the  Master.  By  reason  of  their 
conquest,  and  by  reason  of  their  sympathy  with  Him,  they  see  that  what 
to  us,  tossing  upon  its  surface,  appears  such  a  troubled  and  tempestuous 
ocean,  is  calm  and  still.  As  frDm  some  height,  looked  down  upon,  the 
ocean  seems  a  watery  plain,  and  all  the  agitation  of  the  billows  has 
subsided  into  a  gentle  ripple  on  the  surface  ;  so  to  them  looking  down 
upon  the  sea  that  brought  them  thither,  it  is  quiet — and  their  vision,  not 
ours,  is  the  true  one. 

Just  as  we  fit  round  a  central  light  sparkling  prisms,  each  of  which 
catches  the  glow  at  its  own  angle,  and  flashes  it  back  of  its  own  colour, 
while  the  sovereign  completeness  of  the  perfect  white  radiance  comes  from 
the  blending  of  all  their  separate  rays  ;  so  they  who  stand  round  about  the 
starry  throne  receive  each  the  light  in  his  own  measure  and  manner,  and 
give  forth  each  a  true  and  perfect,  and  altogether  a  complete,  image  of  Him 
who  enlightens  them  all,  and  is  above  them  all.  Like  the  serene  choirs  of 
angels  in  the  old  pictures,  each  one  with  the  same  tongue  of  fire  on  his 
brow,  with  the  same  robe  flowing  in  the  same  f(jlds  to  the  feet,  with  the 
same  golden  hair,  yet  each  a  separate  self,  with  his  own  gladness,  and  a 
different  instrument  for  praise  in  his  hand,  and  his  own  part  in  that 
"undisturbed  song  of  pure  concert."  we  shall  all  be  changed  into  the 
same  image,  and  yet  each  heart  grow  great  with  its  own  blessedness  and 
each  spirit  bright  with  its  own  proper  lustre  of  individual  and  characteristic 
perfection. 

22 


TPIE   RIGHTEOUSNESS   OF   GOD. 

And  the  work  of  righteousness  shall  be  peace,  and  the  effect  of  righteous- 
ness quietness  and  confidence  for  ever. — IsA.  xxxii.  17. 

January  23  *'Thy  righteousness  is  like  the  great  mountains."  Like 
these,  its  roots  are  fast  and  stable  ;  like  these,  it  stands  firm 
for  ever ;  like  these,  its  summits  touch  the  fleeting  clouds  of  human 
circumstance  ;  like  these,  it  is  a  shelter  and  a  refuge,  inaccessible  in  its 
steepest  peaks,  but  affording  many  a  cleft  in  its  rocks  where  a  man  may 
hide  and  be  safe.  But,  unlike  these,  it  knew  no  beginning  and  shall  know 
no  end.  Emblems  of  permanence  as  they  are,  though  Olivet  looks  down 
on  Jerusalem  as  it  did  when  Melchizedek  was  its  king,  and  Tabor  and 
Hermon  stand  as  they  did  before  human  lips  had  named  them,  they  are 
wearing  away  by  winter  storms  and  summer  heats.  But,  as  Isaiah  has 
taught  us,  when  the  earth  is  old,  Gods  might  and  mercy  are  young  ;  for 
"the  mountains  shall  depart  and  the  hills  be  removed,  but  My  kindness 
shall  not  depart  from  thee."  "  The  earth  shall  wax  old  like  a  garment,  but 
My  righteousness  shall  not  be  abolished."  It  is  "more  stable  than  the 
mountains,  and  firmer  than  the  firmest  things  upon  earth." 

Here  towers  Vesuvius  ;  there  at  its  feet  lie  the  waters  of  the  bay.  So 
the  righteousnesss  springs  up  like  some  great  cliff,  rising  sheer  from  the 
water's  edge,  while  its  feet  are  laved  by  the  **sea  of  glass  mingled  with 
fire  " — the  Divine  judgments,  unfathomable  and  shoreless..  The  mountains 
and  the  sea  are  the  two  grandest  things  in  nature,  and  in  their  combina- 
tion sublime  ;  the  one  the  home  of  calm  and  silence,  the  other  in  perpetual 
motion.  But  the  mountain's  roots  are  deeper  than  the  depths  of  the  sea  ; 
and  though  the  judgments  are  a  mighty  deep,  the  righteousness  is  deeper, 
and  is  the  bed  of  that  ocean. 

The  metaphor,  of  course,  implies  obscurity,  but  what  sort  of  obscurity  ? 
The  obscurity  of  the  sea.  And  what  sort  of  obscurity  is  that  ?  Not  that 
which  comes  from  mud,  or  anything  added ;  that  which  comes  from 
depth.  As  far  as  a  man  can  see  down  into  its  blue-green  depths,  they  are 
clear  and  translucent ;  but  where  the  light  fails  and  the  eye  fails,  there 
comes  what  we  call  obscurity.     The  sea  is  clear,  but  our  sight  is  limited. 

And  so  there  is  no  arbitrary  obscurity  in  God's  dealings,  and  we  know 
as  much  about  them  as  it  is  possible  for  us  to  know ;  but  we  cannot  see 
to  the  bottom.  A  man  on  the  cliff  can  see  much  deeper  down  in  the  ocean 
than  a  man  on  the  bank.  The  further  you  climb,  the  further  you  will  see 
down  into  the  "sea  of  glass  mingled  with  fire"  that  lies  placid  before 
God's  throne.  Let  us  remember  that  it  is  a  hazardous  thing  to  judge  ot 
a  picture  before  it  is  finished,  of  a  building  before  the  scaffolding  is  pulled 
down  ;  and  it  is  a  hazardous  thing  for  us  to  say  about  any  deed  or  any 
revealed  truth  that  it  is  inconsistent  with  the  Divine  character.  Wait  a 
bit;  wait  a  bit !  "  Thy  judgments  are  a  great  deep.'*  The  deep  will  be 
drained  off  one  day,  and  you  will  see  the  bottom  of  it 

2Z 


THE  TRUE  OBJECT  OF  LOVE. 

He  that  loveth  not  knoweth  not  God  ;  for  God  is  love. —  i  John  iv.  8. 

J  24     ^^  ^^^  made  with  hearts  that  need  to  rest  upon  an  absohite 

'  love  ;  we  are  made  with  understandings  that  need  to  grasp 
a  pure,  a  perfect,  and,  as  I  believe,  paradoxical  though  it  may  sound,  a 
personal  Truth.  We  are  made  with  wills  that  crave  for  an  absolute 
authoritative  command,  and  we  are  made  with  a  moral  nature  that  needs  a 
perfect  holiness.  And  we  need  all  that  love,  truth,  authority,  purity  to  be 
gathered  into  one  ;  for  the  misery  of  the  world  is  that  when  we  set  out  to 
look  for  treasures,  we  have  to  go  into  many  lands  and  to  many  merchants  to 
buy  many  goodly  pearls.  But  we  need  One  of  great  price,  in  which  all  our 
wealth  may  be  invested.  We  need  that  One  to  be  an  undying  and  per- 
petual possession.  There  is  One  to  whom  our  love  can  ever  cleave,  and 
fear  none  of  the  sorrows  or  imperfections  that  make  earthward-turned  love 
a  rose  with  many  a  thorn,  One  for  whom  it  is  a  pure  gain  to  lose  ourselves, 
One  who  is  plainly  the  only  worthy  recipient  of  the  whole  love  and  self- 
surrender  of  the  heart.  And  that  One  is  God,  revealed  and  brought  near 
to  us  in  Jesus  Christ.  In  that  great  Saviour  we  have  a  love  at  once  divine 
and  human  ;  we  have  the  great  transcendent  instance  of  love  leading  to 
sacrifice.  On  that  love  and  sacrifice  for  us  Christ  builds  His  claim  on  us 
for  our  hearts,  and  our  all.  Life  alone  can  communicate  life  ;  it  is  only 
light  that  can  diffuse  light  ;  it  is  only  love  that  can  kindle  love  ;  it  is  only 
sacrifice  that  can  inspire  sacrifice.  And  so  He  comes  to  us,  and  asks  that 
we  should  just  love  Him  back  again  as  He  has  loved  us.  He  first  gives 
Himself  utterly  unto  us,  and  then  asks  us  to  give  ourselves  wholly  to  Him. 
He  first  yields  up  His  own  life,  and  then  He  says,  "  He  that  loseth  his 
life  for  My  sake  shall  find  it."  The  object,  the  true  object,  for  all  this 
depth  of  love  which  lies  slumbering  in  our  hearts,  is  God  in  Christ,  the 
Christ  that  died  for  us. 

God's  love  is  Christ's  love  ;  Christ's  love  is  God's  love.  And  this  is  the 
lesson  that  we  gather — that  that  infinite  and  Divine  loving-kindness  does 
not  turn  away  from  thee,  my  brother  and  my  friend,  because  thou  art  a 
sinner,  but  remains  hovering  about  thee,  with  wooing  invitations  and  with 
gentle  touches,  if  it  may  draw  thee  to  repentance,  and  open  a  fountain  of 
answering  affection  in  thy  seared  and  dry  heart.  The  love  of  God  is  deeper 
than  all  our  sins.  "  For  His  great  love  wherewith  Pie  loved  us,  when  we 
were  dead  in  sins.  He  quickened  us."  Sin  is  but  the  cloud  behind  which 
the  everlasting  Sun  lies  in  all  its  power  and  warmth,  unaffected  by  the 
cloud  ;  and  the  light  will  yet  strike,  the  light  of  His  love  will  yet  pierce 
through,  with  its  merciful  shafts  bringing  healing  in  their  beams,  and 
dispersing  all  the  pitchy  darkness  of  man's  transgression.  And  as  the  mists 
gather  themselves  up  and  roll  away,  dissipated  by  the  heat  of  that  sun  in 
the  upper  sky,  and  reveal  the  fair  earth  below,  so  the  love  of  Christ  shines 
in,  melting  the  mist  and  dissipating  the  fog,  thinning  it  off  in  its  thickest 
places,  and  at  last  piercing  its  way  through  it,  clown  to  the  heart  of  the 
man  that  has  been  lying  beneath  the  oppression  of  this  thick  darkness,  and 
who  thought  that  the  fog  was  the  sky,  and  that  there  was  no  sun  there 
above. 

24 


SHELTERING   BENEATH   GOD'S   WING. 

How  excellent  is  Thy  lovitig-kindness^  O  God !  therefore  the  children  of 
men  put  their  trust  under  the  shadow  of  Thy  wings. — Psalm  xxxvi.  7. 

God's  loving-kindness,  or  mercy,  as  I  explained  the  word 
might  be  rendered,  \s  precious,  for  that  is  the  true  meaning  of 
the  word  translated  "  excellent."  We  are  rich  when  we  have  that  for  ours  ; 
we  are  poor  without  it.  The  true  wealth  is  to  possess  God's  love,  and  to 
know  in  thought  and  realise  in  feeling  and  reciprocate  in  affection  Ilis 
grace  and  goodness,  the  beauty  and  perfectness  of  His  wondrous  character. 
That  man  is  wealthy  who  has  God  on  his  side  ;  that  man  is  a  pauper  who 
has  not  God  for  his. 

The  word  rendered,  and  accurately  rendered,  "  put  their  trust,"  has  a 
very  beautiful  literal  meaning.  It  means  to  flee  for  refuge,  as  the  man- 
slayer  might  flee  into  the  strong  city,  or  as  Lot  did  out  of  Sodom  to  the  little 
city  on  the  hill,  as  David  did  into  the  cave  from  his  enemies.  So  says 
the  Word.  With  such  haste,  with  such  intensity,  staying  for  nothing,  and 
with  the  effort  of  your  whole  will  and  nature,  flee  to  God.  That  is  trust. 
Go  to  Him  for  refuge  from  all  evil,  from  all  harm,  from  your  own  souls, 
from  all  sin,  from  hell  and  death  and  the  devil.  Put  your  trust  under 
*'  the  shadow  of  His  wing." 

That  is  a  beautiful  image,  drawn,  probably,  from  the  grand  words  of 
Deuteronomy,  where  the  tenderness  of  God  is  likened  to  the  "  eagle  stirring 
up  her  nest,  fluttering  over  her  young,"  with  tenderness  in  her  fierce  eye 
and  protecting  strength  in  the  sweep  of  her  mighty  pinion.  So  God  spreads 
the  covert  of  His  wing,  strong  and  tender,  beneath  which  we  may  all 
gather  ourselves  and  nestle.  And  how  can  we  do  that  ?  By  the  simple 
process  of  fleeing  unto  Him,  as  made  known  to  us  in  Christ  our  Saviour  ; 
to  hide  ourselves  there.  For  let  us  not  forget  how  even  the  tenderness  of 
this  metaphor  was  increased  by  its  shape  on  the  tender  lips  of  the  Lord : 
"How  often  would  I  have  gathered  thy  children  together,  as  a  hen 
gathereth  her  chickens  under  her  wings."  The  Old  Testament  took  the 
emblem  of  the  eagle,  sovereign  and  strong  and  fierce.  The  New  Testa- 
ment took  the  emblem  of  the  domestic  fowl,  peaceable  and  gentle  and 
aff"ectionate.  Let  us  flee  to  that  Christ,  by  humble  faith,  with  the  plea  on 
our  lips— 

"  Cover  my  defenceless  head 
With  the  shadow  of  Thy  wings"; 

and  then  all  the  Godhead,  in  its  mercy,  its  faithfulness,  its  righteousness, 
and  its  judgments,  will  be  on  our  side,  and  we  shall  know  how  precious  is 
the  lovingkindness  of  the  Lord,  and  find  in  Him  the  hon  2  and  hiding-place 
of  our  hearts  for  ever. 

25 


VICTORY  THROUGH  THE  BLOOD   OF  THE  LAMB. 

Thanks  be  unto  God,  who  give ih  us  the  victory  through  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ. — I  Cor.  xv.  57. 

T  26    That  victory  is  possible.     The  Apocalypse  shows  us  that 

"  there  are  two  opposing  Powers — the  "beast"  on  the  one 
side,  and  "the  Lamb"  on  the  other.  These  two  divide  the  world  between 
them  in  the  seer's  vision.  That  is  to  say,  Jesus  Christ  has  conquered  the 
bestial  tendencies  of  our  nature  ;  He  has  conquered  the  selfish  godlessness 
which  is  apt  to  cast  its  spells  and  weave  its  chains  over  us  all.  The 
Warrior- Lamb,  singular  and  incongruous  as  the  combination  sounds,  is  the 
victor.  He  conquers  because  He  is  the  Lamb  of  sacrifice  ;  He  conquers 
because  He  is  the  Lamb  of  innocence  ;  He  conquers  because  He  is  the 
Lamb  of  meekness,  the  gentle  and,  therefore,  the  all-victorious.  By  Christ 
we  conquer.  Through  faith,  which  lays  hold  on  His  power  and  victory, 
we  too  may  conquer.  "This  is  the  victory  which  overcometh  the  world, 
even  our  faith." 

Young  men  and  women  !  do  not  let  yourselves  be  led  away  captives 
to  the  shambles  by  the  fascinations  and  seductions  of  this  poor,  fleeting 
present.  Keep  your  heel  on  the  neck  of  the  animal  that  is  within  you  ; 
take  care  of  that  selfish  godlessness  into  which  we  all  are  tempted  to  fall. 
Listen  to  the  trumpet-call  that  ought  to  stir  your  hearts,  that  summons  you 
to  freedom  and  to  victory  through  the  blood  of  the  Lamb.  And  do  you,  by 
humbly  clasping  Him  as  your  sacrifice,  your  leader,  and  your  power,  enrol 
yourselves  amongst  those  who,  in  His  own  good  time,  shall  come  victorious 
from  the  "  beast "  and  from  his  image. 

Our  Captain  provides  us  with  an  inexhaustible  strength,  to  which  we 
may  fully  trust.  We  shall  not  exhaust  it  by  any  demands  that  we  can 
make  upon  it.  We  shall  only  brighten  it  up,  like  the  nails  in  a  well-used 
shoe,  the  heads  of  which  are  polished  by  stumbling  and  scrambling  over 
rocky  roads.  "  Thy  shoes  shall  be  iron  and  brass  ;  and  as  thy  days  so 
shall  thy  strength  be." 

Did  you  ever  see  that  electric  light  which  is  made  by  directing  a  strong 
stream  upon  two  small  pieces  of  carbon  ?  As  the  electricity  strikes  upon 
these  and  turns  their  blackness  into  a  fiery  blaze,  it  eats  away  their  sub- 
stance as  it  changes  them  into  light.  But  there  is  an  arrangement  in  the 
lamp  by  which  a  fresh  surface  is  continually  being  brought  into  the  path  of 
the  beam,  and  so  the  light  continues  without  wavering,  and  blazes  on. 
The  carbon  is  our  human  nature,  black  and  dull  in  itself;  the  electric  beam 
is  the  swift  energy  of  God,  which  makes  us  light  in  the  Lord.  God  does 
not  turn  people  out  to  scramble  over  rough  mountains  with  thin-soled  boots 
on.  When  an  Alpine  climber  is  preparing  to  go  away  into  Switzerland  for 
rock  work,  the  first  thing  he  does  is  to  get  a  pair  of  strong  shoes,  with 
plenty  of  iron  nails  in  the  soles  of  them.  Each  of  us  may  be  sure  that 
if  God  sends  us  on  stony  paths  He  will  provide  us  with  strong  shoes,  and 
will  not  send  us  out  on  any  journey  for  which  He  does  not  equip  us  welL 

26 


MISDIRECTED  ZEAL. 

I  bear  them  witness  that  they  have  a  zeal  for  God,  but  not  according  to 
knowledge. — ROM.  x.  2. 

There  is  nothing  more  tragic  in  this  world  than  misdirection 
January  .  ^^  nian's  capacity  for  love  and  sacrifice.  It  is  like  the  old 
story  in  the  book  of  Daniel,  of  how  the  heathen  monarch  made  a  great 
feast,  and  when  the  wine  began  to  inflame  the  guests,  sent  for  the  sacred 
vessels  taken  from  the  Temple  of  Jerusalem,  that  had  been  used  for  Jehovah's 
worship,  and,  as  the  narrative  says,  with  a  kind  of  shudder  at  the  profana- 
tion. "  They  brought  the  golden  vessels  that  were  taken  out  of  the  temple 
of  the  House  of  God,  which  was  at  Jerusalem,  and  the  king  and  his  princes, 
his  wives  and  his  concubines,  drank  in  them.  They  drank  wine  and  praised 
the  gods." 

So  this  heart  of  mine,  which  has  the  Master's  initials  and  His  arms 
engraven  upon  it,  in  token  that  it  is  His  cup — this  heart  of  mine  I  too  often 
fill  with  the  poisonous  and  intoxicating  draught  of  earthly  pleasure  and 
earthly  affections  ;  and,  as  I  drink  it,  the  madness  goes  through  my  veins, 
and  I  praise  the  gods  of  my  own  making  instead  of  Him  whom  alone  I 
ought  to  love.  We  should  be  our  own  rebukes  in  this  matter,  and  the 
heroisms  of  the  world  should  put  to  shame  the  cowardice  and  the  selfishness 
of  the  Church.  Contrast  the  depth  of  your  affection  for  your  household 
with  the  tepidity  of  your  love  for  your  Saviour.  Contrast  the  willing- 
ness with  which  you  sacrifice  yourself  for  some  dear  one  with  the  grudgingness 
with  which  you  yield  yourselves  to  Him.  Contrast  the  rest  and  the  sense 
of  satisfaction  in  the  presence  of  those  you  love,  and  your  desolation  when 
they  are  absent,  with  the  indifference  whether  you  have  Christ  beside  you 
or  not.  And  remember  that  the  measure  of  your  power  of  loving  is  the 
measure  of  your  obligation  to  love  your  Lord  ;  and  that  if  you  are  all  frost 
to  Him  and  all  fervour  to  them,  in  a  very  solemn  sense  *'a  man's  foes  shall 
be  they  of  his  own  household."  "  He  that  loveth  father  or  mother  more 
than  Me  is  not  worthy  of  Me  !  " 

I  would  beseech  you  to  bring  that  power  of  uncalculating  love  and 
self-sacrificing  affection  which  is  in  you,  and  fasten  it  where  it  ought  to  fix 
— on  Christ,  who  died  on  the  Cross  for  you.  Such  a  love  will  bring 
blessedness  to  you.  Such  a  love  will  ennoble  and  dignify  your  whole  nature, 
and  make  you  a  far  greater  and  fairer  man  or  woman  than  you  otherwise 
ever  could  be.  Like  some  little  bit  of  black  carbon  put  into  an  electric 
current,  my  poor  nature  will  flame  into  beauty  and  radiance  when  that 
spark  touches  it.  So,  love  Him  and  be  at  peace  ;  give  yourselves  to  Him, 
and  He  will  give  you  back  yourselves,  ennobled  and  transfigured  by  the 
surrender.  Lay  yourselves  on  His  altar,  and  that  altar  will  sanctify  both 
the  giver  and  the  gift. 

27 


UNCONSCIOUS   POWER  FOR  SERVICE. 
We  know  not  with  what  we  must  serve  the  Lord. — Exod.  x.  26. 

The  weakest  and  the  lowest,  the  roughest  and  the  hardest, 
*  the  most  selfishly-absorbed  man  and  woman  amongst  us  has 
lying  in  him  and  her  dormant  capacities  for  flaming  up  into  such  a 
splendour  of  devotion,  and  magnificence  of  heroic  self-forgetfulness  and 
self-sacrifice  as  is  represented  in  many  words  of  the  Bible.  A  mother  will 
do  it  for  her  child,  and  never  think  that  she  has  done  anything  extraordinary  ; 
husbands  will  do  such  things  for  wives ;  wives  for  husbands ;  friends  and 
lovers  for  one  another.  All  who  love  the  sweetness  and  power  of  the 
bond  of  affection  know  that  there  is  nothing  more  gladsome  than  to  fling 
one's  self  away  for  the  sake  of  those  whom  we  love.  And  the  capacity  for 
such  love  and  sacrifice  lies  in  all  of  us ;  prosaic,  commonplace  people  as 
we  are,  with  no  great  field  on  which  to  work  out  our  heroisms,  yet  it  is 
in  us  all  to  love  and  give  ourselves  away  thus  if  once  the  heart  be  stirred. 
If  once  the  capacity  is  roused  to  action,  it  will  make  a  man  blessed  and 
dignified  as  nothing  else  will.  The  joy  of  unselfish  love  is  the  purest  joy 
that  man  can  taste  ;  the  joy  of  perfect  self-sacrifice  is  the  highest  joy  that 
humanity  can  possess, — and  it  lies  open  for  us  alL 

And  wherever,  in  some  humble  measure,  these  emotions  of  which  I 
have  been  speaking  are  realised,  there  you  get  weakness  springing  up  into 
strength,  and  the  ignoble  into  loftiness.  Astronomers  tell  us  that,  some- 
times, a  star  that  has  shone  inconspicuous,  away  down  in  tlieir  catalogues 
fifth  or  sixth  magnitude,  will  all  at  once  flame  out,  having  kindled  and 
caught  fire  somehow,  and  will  blaze  in  the  heavens,  outshining  Jupiter 
and  Venus.  And  so  some  poor,  vulgar,  narrow  nature,  touched  by  this 
Promethean  fire  of  pure  love  that  leads  to  perfect  sacrifice,  will  "flame  in 
the  forehead  of  the  morning  sky,"  an  imdying  splendour,  and  a  light  for 
evermore.  All  have  this  capacity  in  them,  and  all  are  responsible  for  the 
use  of  it.  What  have  you  done  with  it  ?  Is  there  any  person  or  thing  in 
this  world  that  has  ever  been  able  to  lift  you  up  out  of  your  miserable 
selves  ?  Is  there  any  magnet  that  has  proved  strong  enough  to  raise  you 
from  the  low  levels  along  which  your  life  creeps  ?  E[ave  you  ever  known 
the  thrill  of  resolving  to  become  the  bondservant  and  the  slave  of  some 
great  cause  not  your  own?  Or  are  you,  as  so  many  are,  like  spiders 
living  in  the  midst  of  your  web,  mainly  intent  upon  what  it  can  catch  for 
you  ?  Have  you  ever  set  a  light  to  that  inert  mass  of  enthusiasm  that  lies 
in  ycu?  Have  you  ever  woke  up  the  sleeper?  Learn  the  lesson  that 
there  is  nothing  that  so  ennobles  and  dignifies  a  common  nature  as  en- 
thusiasm for  a  great  cause,  self-sacrificing  love  for  a  worthy  heart. 

28 


CHRIST  THE  TRUE   OBJECT  OF  OUR  ENDEAVOUR. 
For  to  me  to  live  is  Christ,  and  to  die  is  gain. — Phil.  i.  21. 

"Whose  image  and  superscription  hath  it?"  said  Christ, 
"  looking  at  the  Roman  denarius  that  they  brought  and  laid 
in  His  palm.  If  the  Emperor's  head  is  on  it,  why,  then,  he  has  a  right  to 
the  tribute  of  it.  And  then  He  went  on  to  say,  "  Render,  therefore,  unto 
Csesar  the  things  that  are  Caesar's,  and  unto  God  the  things  that  are  God's." 
So  there  are  things  that  have  God's  head  upon  them,  God's  image  and 
superscription  stamped,  and  these  are  your  hearts,  your  whole  constitution 
and  nature.  As  plainly  as  the  penny  had  the  head  of  Augustus  on  it,  and 
therefore  proclaimed  that  he  was  emperor  where  it  was  current,  so  plainly 
does  every  soul  carry  in  the  image  of  God  the  witness  that  He  is  its  owner, 
and  that  it  should  be  rendered  in  tribute  to  Him. 

And  amongst  all  these  marks  of  a  Divine  possession  and  a  Divine 
destination  printed  upon  human  nature,  it  seems  to  me  that  none  are 
plainer  than  this  fact,  that  we  can  all  of  us  thus  give  ourselves  away  in  the 
abandonment  of  a  profound  and  all-commanding  love.  That  capacity 
unmistakably  proclaims  that  it  is  destined  to  be  directed  towards  God,  and 
to  find  its  rest  in  Him.  As  distinctly  as  some  silver  cup,  with  its  owner's 
initials  and  arms  engraved  upon  it,  declares  itself  to  be  "  meet  for  the 
master's  use,"  so  distinctly  does  your  soul,  by  reason  of  this  faculty, 
proclaim  that  it  is  meant  to  be  turned  to  Him  in  whom  alone  all  love  can 
find  its  perfect  satisfaction  ;  for  whom  alone  it  is  blessed  and  great  to  shed 
life  itself ;  and  who  only  has  the  authority  over  our  human  spirits. 

I  will  not  say  that  such  emotions,  wherever  expended  on  creatures,  are 
ever  wasted.  For  however  unworthy  may  be  the  objects  on  which  they 
are  lavished,  the  man  himself  is  the  better  and  the  higher  for  having 
cherished  them.  The  mother  for  her  child,  though  her  love  and  self- 
forgetfulness  and  self-sacrifice  may,  in  some  respects,  be  called  but  an 
animal  instinct,  is  elevated  and  ennobled  by  the  exercise  of  them.  The 
patriot  and  the  thinker,  the  philanthropist,  ay  !  even — although  I  take  it 
to  be  the  lowest  of  the  scale — the  soldier,  who,  in  some  cause  which  he 
thinks  to  be  a  good  one,  and  not  merely  in  the  tigerish  madness  of  the 
battlefield,  throws  away  his  life,  is  lifted  in  the  scale  of  being  by  the  deed. 
And  so  I  am  not  going  to  say  that  when  men  love  each  other  passionately 
and  deeply,  and  sacrifice  themselves  for  one  another,  or  for  some  cause  or 
purpose  affecting  only  temporal  matters,  the  precious  elixir  of  life  is 
wasted.  God  forbid  !  But  I  do  say  that  all  these  objects,  sweet  and 
gracious  as  some  of  them  are,  ennobling  and  elevating  as  some  of  them 
are,  if  they  are  taken  apart  from  God,  are  insufficient  to  fill  your  hearts  ; 
and  thai  if  they  are  slipped  in  between  you  and  God,  as  they  often  are, 
til  ;n  they  bring  sin  and  sorrow. 

29 


THE  BLESSEDNESS   OF  A   RIGHT  CHOICE. 

Butter  and  honey  shall  he  eat^  that  he  may  know  to  refuse  the  evil,  ana 
choose  the  good. — Isa.  vii.  15. 

If  you  choose  Christ,  you  choose  all  that  your  nature  needs 
^  ■  for  its  rest,  for  its  peace,  for  its  development,  for  its  ex- 
pansion, for  its  efllorescence  into  growing  beauty  through  eternity.  If  you 
will  take  Christ  for  your  Lord,  your  heart  may  fold  its  wings  like  the  dove 
that  came  back  from  the  flood,  and  may  rest  in  His  love,  which  is  perfect 
and  pure  and  wise  and  unalterable.  If  you  will  take  Christ  for  your 
choice,  and  become  His  servant,  and  let  Him  save  you  and  rule  you,  then 
all  the  seeking  understanding  will  find  in  Him,  and  in  the  manifold  and 
endless  "  treasures  of  wisdom  and  knowledge "  into  which  His  name 
breaks — like  the  sunbeam  when  it  strikes  upon  the  mirror,  and  is  shattered 
into  a  million  dancing  brightnesses — all  that  the  intellect  can  require.  If 
you  will  take  Christ  for  your  Saviour  and  your  King,  then  that  mastering 
will  which  so  often  leads  us  astray,  and  those  passions  which  so  often 
plunge  us  into  filth  and  mire,  will  own  His  guidance ;  and  the  lion  shall 
lie  down  with  the  lamb,  and  the  bear  in  the  menagerie  of  your  heart  will 
eat  straw  like  the  ox,  and  you  will  be  able  to  lay  your  hand  on  the 
cockatrice  den  and  not  be  stung,  and  all  the  wild  beasts  will  be  tamed,  and 
your  feebleness  as  that  of  "a  little  child  shall  lead  them." 

If  you  will  take  Christ  for  your  Saviour  and  your  King,  the  disease  of 
your  natures  will  be  healed,  which  He  can  only  heal.  For,  oh  !  no  man 
looks  all  the  facts  in  the  face,  or  has  made  a  choice  worthy  of  calling  by 
that  name,  who  has  not  looked  the  fact  of  sin  in  the  face,  and  settled  how 
he  is  going  to  get  rid  of  the  three-pronged  dart  which  it  flings — guilt,  and 
punishment,  and  power — if  he  does  not  take  Christ's  way  of  getting  rid  of 
it.  There  is  none  that  can  touch  the  central  corruption  of  humanity,  none 
that  can  bring  pardon,  none  that  can  enable  us  to  shake  the  venomous 
beast  that  has  fastened  on  our  hands  into  the  fire,  and  feel  no  harm,  except 
Christ  only.  You  may  '*  cut  yourselves  with  knives  and  lancets  after 
their  manner  till  the  blood  gush  out,"  and  cry  to  all  the  gods  besides,  and 
to  yourself,  who  are  the  Jupiter  of  them  all,  from  morning  to  evening,  to 
get  rid  of  the  fact  of  sin,  and  there  will  be  no  voice  nor  answer,  "  nor  any 
that  regarded." 

If  you  will  take  Christ  as  your  Saviour,  and  serve  Him,  you  will  find  it 
possible  to  live  more  noble,  helpful,  manly  lives  for  God  and  the  world 
than  by  any  other  means.  If  you  will  take  Christ  for  your  Saviour,  and 
yourselves  be  enrolled  as  His  obedient  servants,  then  you  will  secure  for 
yourselves  a  future  without  a  cloud,  in  which  ills  have  no  power  to  harm, 
and  all  things  are  transmuted  into  good,  and  death  has  no  bitterness  and 
eternity  no  terror.  Let  Baal  come  and  do  the  like.  Till  he  does,  I  urge 
that  no  claims  can  for  a  moment  be  set  by  the  side  of  Christ's. 

30 


ITTAI   OF  GATH. 

And  Ittat  answered  the  king,  and  said:  As  the  Lord  liveth,  and  as  my 
lord  the  king  liveth,  surely  in  zvhat  place  my  lord  the  king  s'.iall  be,  ivheiher 
^or  death  or  for  life,  even  there  also  will  thy  servant  be. — 2  Sam.  xv.  21. 

January  31.  LoOK  at  the  picture  of  that  Philistine  soldier,  as  teaching 
us  what  grand,  passionate  self-sacrifice  may  be  evolved  out 
of  the  roughest  na-ures.  Here  the)' are,  "faithful  among  the  faithless"; 
as  foreign  soldiers  surrounding  a  king  often  are,  notably,  for  instance,  the 
Swiss  guard  in  ihe  French  Revolution.  Their  strong  arms  might  have  been 
of  great  use  to  David,  but  his  generosity  cannot  think  of  involving  them 
in  his  fall,  and  so  he  says  to  them  :  "I  am  not  going  to  fight ;  I  have  no 
plan.  I  am  going  where  I  can.  You  go  back  and  *  worship  the  rising 
sun.'  Absalom  will  take  you  in,  and  be  glad  of  your  help.  And  as  for 
me,  I  thank  you  for  your  past  loyalty.     Mercy  and  peace  be  with  you  ! " 

It  is  a  beautiful  nature  that,  in  the  depth  of  sorrow,  thinks  more  of 
dragging  other  people  into  it  than  of  its  own  fate.  Generosity  breeds 
generosity,  and  this  rough  Philistine  captain  breaks  out  into  a  burst  of 
passionate  devotion,  garnished  in  soldier  fashion  with  an  unnecessary  oath 
or  two,  but  ringing  very  sincere,  and  meaning  a  great  deal.  As  for  himself 
and  his  men,  they  have  chosen  their  side.  Whoever  goes,  they  stay. 
Whatever  befalls,  they  stick  by  David  ;  and  if  the  worst  come  to  the  worst, 
they  can  all  die  together,  and  their  corpses  lie  in  firm  ranks  round  about 
their  dead  king.  David's  heart  is  touched  and  warmed  by  their  outspoken 
loyalty ;  he  yields  and  accepts  their  service.  Ittai  and  his  noble  six 
hundred  tramp  on,  out  of  our  sight,  with  all  their  households  behind  them. 
Analyse  their  words,  and  do  you  not  hear,  ringing  in  them,  these  three 
things,  which  are  the  seed  of  all  nobility  and  splendour  in  human  character 
— a  passionate,  personal  attachment,  issuing  in  spontaneous  heroism  of 
self-abandonment,  and  in  supreme  satisfaction  in  the  beloved  presence? 
And  these  may  spring  up  in  the  rudest,  roughest  nature.  A  Philistine 
soldier  was  not  a  very  likely  man  in  whom  to  find  refined  and  lofty 
emotion.  He  was  hard  by  nature,  hardened  by  his  rough  trade  ;  and 
unconscious,  at  the  moment  here,  that  he  was  doing  anything  at  all  heroic 
or  great.  Something  had  smitten  this  rock,  and  out  of  it  there  came  the 
pure  refreshing  stream.  For  Ittai  and  his  men  the  one  thing  needful  was 
to  be  beside  him  in  whose  eye  they  had  lived,  from  whose  presence  they 
had  caught  inspiration  ;  their  trusted  leader,  before  whom  their  souls 
bowed  down.     So  then  his  vehement  speech  is  the  pure  language  of  love. 

The  world  knows  nothing  of  its  greatest  men,  but  there  is  a  day  coming 
when  the  spurious  mushroom  aristocracy  of  power  and  the  like,  that  the 
world  has  worshipped,  will  be  forgotten — like  the  nobility  of  some 
conquered  land,  that  is  brushed  aside  and  relegated  to  private  fife  by  the 
new  nobility  of  the  conquerors ;  and  the  true  nobles,  God's  greatest — the 
righteous,  who  are  righteous  because  they  have  trusted  in  Christ — shall 
shine  forth  like  the  sun  "  in  the  kingdom  of  My  Father." 

31 


"IT  PASSETH   KNOWLEDGE." 

That  they  may  know  the  mystery  of  God,  even  Christ,  in  whom  are  all 
the  treasures  of  wisdom  and  knowledge  hidden. — CoL.  ii.  2,  3. 

-  I  DO  not  suppose  that  the  paradox  of  knowing  the  love  of 
e  ruary  .  (Christ  which  "  passeth  knowledge"  is  to  be  explained  by 
taking  "know"  and  "knowledge  "  in  two  different  senses,  so  as  that  it  means 
we  may  experience,  and  know  by  conscious  experience,  that  love  which  the 
mere  understanding  is  incapable  of  grasping.  That  of  course  is  an  explana- 
tion which  might  be  defended,  but  I  take  it  that  it  is  much  truer  to  the 
Apostle's  meaning  to  suppose  that  he  uses  the  words  "know"  and 
"  knowit;dge"  both  times  in  the  same  sense.  And  so  we  get  two  familiar 
thoughts.  The  understanding  can  grasp,  but  it  can  never  grasp  all  round, 
the  love  of  Jesus  Christ.  You  and  I  believe,  I  hope,  that  Christ's  love  is 
not  a  man's  love,  or  at  least  that  it  is  more  than  a  man's  love.  We 
believe  that  it  is  the  flowing  out  to  us  of  the  love  of  God,  that  all  the 
fulness  of  the  Divine  heart  pours  itself  through  that  narrow  channel  of 
the  human  nature  of  our  Lord,  and  therefore  that  the  flow  is  endless  and  the 
Fountain  infinite. 

I  suppose  I  do  not  need  to  show  you  that  it  is  possible  for  people  to 
have,  and  that  in  fact  we  do  possess,  a  real,  a  valid,  a  reliable  knowledge 
of  that  which  is  infinite,  although  we  possess,  as  a  matter  of  course,  no 
adequate  and  complete  knowledge  of  it.  But  I  only  remind  you  that  we 
have  before  us  in  Christ's  love  something  which,  though  the  understanding 
is  not  by  itself  able  to  grasp  it,  yet  the  understanding  led  by  the  heart  can 
lay  hold  of,  and  can  find  in  it  infinite  treasures.  But  we  can  only  lay  our 
poor  hands,  as  a  child  might  lay  its  tiny  palm  upon  the  base  of  some  great 
cliff — we  can  lay  our  poor  hands  on  His  love,  and  hold  it  in  a  real  grasp  of 
a  real  knowledge  and  certitude  ;  but  we  cannot  put  our  hands  round  it,  and 
feel  that  we  ci?;«prehend  as  well  as  a/prehend.  Blessed  be  His  name  !  we 
cannot. 

His  love  can  only  become  to  us  a  subject  of  knowledge  as  it  reveals 
itself  in  its  manifestations.  Yet  after  even  these  manifestations,  it  remains 
unuttered  and  unutterable,  even  by  the  Cross  and  grave,  even  by  the  glory 
and  the  throne. 

My  friend,  God  hath  loved  us  with  an  everlasting  love.  He  has 
provided  an  eternal  redemption  and  pardon  for  us.  If  you  would  know 
Christ  at  all,  you  must  go  to  Ilim  as  a  sinful  man,  or  you  are  shut  out  from 
Him  altogether.  If  you  xvill  go  to  Him  as  a  sinful  being,  fling  yourself 
down  there,  not  try  to  make  yourself  better,  but  say,  "  I  am  all  full  of 
unrighteousness  and  transgression  :  let  Thy  love  fall  upon  me  and  heal  me  "  ; 
you  will  get  the  answer,  and  in  your  heart  there  shall  begin  to  live  and 
grow  up  a  root  of  love  to  Him,  which  shall  at  last  effloresce  into  all 
knowledge  and  into  all  purity  of  obedience  ;  for  he  that  hath  had  much 
forgiven,  loveth  much  ;  and  "he  that  loveth,  knoweth God," and  "  dwelleth 
in  God,  and  God  in  him." 

^2 


THE   BRUISED   REED   RESTORED. 
A  bruised  reed  shall  He  not  break. — Isa.  xHi.  3, 

Februarv  2  Here  is  the  picture.  A  slender  bulrush,  growing  by  the 
'  margin  of  some  tarn  or  pond  ;  its  sides  crushed  and  dinted 
in  by  some  outward  power,  some  gust  of  wind,  some  sudden  blow,  the 
foot  of  some  passing  animal.  The  head  is  hanging  by  a  thread,  but  it  is 
not  yet  snapped  or  broken  off  from  the  stem.  It  is  "bruised,"  but  the 
bruise  is  not  irreparable.  And  so,  says  this  text,  there  are  reeds  bruised 
and  "shaken  by  the  wind,"  but  yet  not  broken.  And  the  tender  Christ 
comes,  with  His  gentle,  wise,  skilful  surgery,  to  bind  these  up  and  to  make 
them  strong  again. 

On  no  man  has  sin  fastened  its  venomous  claws  so  deeply  but  that 
these  may  be  wrenched  away.  In  none  of  us  has  the  virus  so  gone  through 
our  veins  but  that  it  is  capable  of  being  expelled.  The  reeds  are  all 
bruised,  the  reeds  are  none  of  them  broken.  And  so  this  text  comes  with 
its  great  triumphant  hopefulness,  and  gathers  into  one  mass  as  capable  of 
restoration  the  most  abject,  the  most  worthless,  the  most  ignorant,  the 
most  sensuous,  the  most  godless,  the  most  Christ-hating  of  the  race.  And 
He  looks  on  all  the  tremendous  bulk  of  a  world's  sins  with  the  confidence 
that  He  can  move  that  mountain  and  cast  it  into  the  depths  of  the  sea. 

In  accordance  with  other  metaphors  of  Scripture,  we  may  think  of 
"the  bruised  reed*'  as  expressive  of  the  condition  of  men  whose  hearts 
have  been  crushed  by  the  consciousness  of  their  sins.  "The  broken  and 
the  contrite  heart,"  bruised  and  pulverised,  as  it  were,  by  a  sense  of  evil, 
may  be  typified  for  us  by  this  bruised  reed.  And  then  from  the  words  of 
this  text  there  emerges  the  great  and  blessed  hope  that  such  a  heart, 
wholesomely  removed  from  its  self-complacent  fancy  of  soundness,  shall 
certainly  be  healed  and  bound  up  by  His  tender  hand.  Did  you  ever  see 
a  gardener  dealing  with  some  plant,  a  spray  of  which  may  have  been 
wounded?  How  delicately  ancl  tenderly  the  big,  clumsy  hand  busies 
itself  about  the  tiny  spray,  and  by  stays  and  bandages  brings  it  into  an 
erect  position,  and  then  gives  it  water  and  loving  care.  Just  so  does  Jesus 
Christ  deal  with  the  conscious  and  sensitive  heart  of  a  man  that  has  begun 
to  find  out  how  bad  he  is,  and  has  been  driven  away  from  all  his  foolish 
confidence.  Christ  comes  to  such  a  one  and  restores  him,  and,  just  because 
he  is  crashed,  deals  with  him  gently,  pouring  in  His  consolation.  Where- 
soever there  is  a  touch  of  penitence,  there  is  present  a  restoring  Christ. 

Brother  and  sister  !  suffering  from  any  sorrow,  and  bleeding  from  any 
v/ound,  there  is  balm  and  a  physician.  There  is  one  hand  that  will  never 
be  laid  with  blundering  kindness  or  with  harshness  upon  our  sore  hearts, 
but  whose  touching  will  be  healing  and  whose  presence  will  be  peace. 

The  Christ  that  knows  our  sins  and  sorrows  will  not  break  the  bruised 
reed.  The  whole  race  of  man  may  be  represented  in  that  parable  that 
came  from  His  own  lips,  as  fallen  among  thieves  that  have  robbed  him 
and  wounded  him,  and  left  him  bruised,  and,  blessed  be  God  !  only  "half 
dead,"— sorely  wounded,  indeed,  but  not  so  sorely  but  that  he  may  be 
restored.  And  there  comes  One  with  the  wine  and  the  oil,  and  pours 
them  into  the  wounds. 

33  D 


CHRIST  THE   FOSTERER   OF   INCIPIENT  AND  IMPERFECT 

GOOD. 

The  smoking  flax  (the  dimly-bumiug  wick)  shall  He  not  quench. — 
IsA.  xlii.  3. 

J, ,  8     ^^  ^^^  men,  just  because  the  process  of  evil  and  the  wounds 

^  '  from  it  are  not  so  deep  and  complete  as  that  ix  ,;<jialion  is 
impossible,  therefore  is  there  something  in  their  nature  which  corresponds 
to  this  dim  flame  that  needs  to  be  luslered  in  order  to  blaze  brightly 
abroad.  There  is  no  rnan  out  of  hell  but  has  in  him  something  that  wants 
but  to  be  brought  to  sovereign  power  in  his  life  in  order  to  make  him  a 
light  in  the  world.  You  have  got  consciences  at  the  least  ;  you  have 
convictions,  you  know  you  have,  which,  if  you  followed  them  out,  would 
make  Christians  of  you  straight  away.  You  have  got  aspirations  after 
good,  desires  after  purity  and  nobleness  of  living,  which  only  need  to  be 
raised  to  the  height  and  the  dominance  in  your  lives  which  they  ought  to 
possess  in  order  to  revolutionise  your  whole  course.  There  is  a  spark  in 
every  man  which,  fanned  and  cared  for,  will  change  him  from  darkness 
into  light.  Fanned  and  cared  for  it  needs  to  be,  and  fanned  and  cared  for 
it  can  only  be  by  a  Divine  power  coming  down  upon  it  from  without. 
He  from  whom  all  sparks  of  light  have  died  out  is  not  a  man,  but  a  devil. 
And  for  all  of  us  the  exhortation  comes :  "  Thou  hast  a  law  within 
testifying  to  God  and  to  duty  "  ;  listen  to  it  and  care  for  it.  In  a  narrower 
way,  the  words  may  be  applied  to  a  class.  There  are  some  of  us  who 
have  in  us  a  little  spark,  as  we  believe,  of  a  Divine  life,  the  faint  beginnings 
of  a  Christian  character.  We  call  ourselves  Chiisl's  disciples.  We  are, 
but  oh  !  how  dimly  the  flax  burns  !  They  say  that  where  there  is  smoke 
there  is  fire.  There  is  a  deal  more  smoke  than  fire  in  the  most  of  Christian 
people  in  this  generation.  And  if  it  were  not  for  such  thoughts  as  this, 
about  that  dear  Christ  that  will  not  lay  a  hasty  hand  upon  some  httle 
tremulous  spark,  and  by  one  rash  movement  extinguish  it  for  ever,  there 
would  be  but  little  hope  for  a  great  many  of  us. 

How  do  you  make  ''smoking  flax"  burn?  You  give  it  oil,  you  give  it 
air,  and  you  take  away  the  charred  portions.  And  Christ  will  give  you, 
in  your  feebleness,  the  oil  of  His  Spirit,  that  you  may  burn  brightly  as  one 
of  the  candlesticks  in  His  temple  ;  and  He  will  let  air  in,  and  take  away 
the  charred  portions  by  the  wise  discipline  of  sorrow  and  trial  sometimes 
in  order  that  the  smoking  flax  may  become  the  shining  light.  But  by 
whatsoever  means  it  may  be,  be  sure  of  this,  that  He  will  neither  despise 
nor  neglect  the  feeblest  inclination  of  good  after  Him,  but  will  nourish  it 
to  perfection  and  to  beauty. 

The  reason  why  so  many  Christian  men's  Christian  light  is  so  fuliginous 
and  dim  is  just  that  they  keep  away  from  Jesus  Christ.  "Abide  in  Me 
and  I  in  you."  "As  the  branch  cannot  bear  fruit  of  itself,  except  it  abide 
in  the  vine,  no  niore  can  ye  except  ye  abide  in  Me."  How  can  the 
Temple  lamps  burn  bright  unless  the  Priest  of  the  Temple  tends  them  ? 
Keep  near  Him,  that  His  hand  may  nourish  your  smoking  dimness  into  a 
pure  flame,  leaping  heavenward  and  illuminating  your  lives. 

34 


OUR  LORD'S   PERFECT   MANHOOD. 

He  shall  not  fail  {or  burn  dimly,  marg.)  nor  be  discouraged  (bruised y 
marg.),  till  He  have  set  judgment  in  the  earth. — IsA.  xlii.  4. 

There  are  no  bruises  in  this  reed.  That  is  to  say,  Christ's 
*  Manhood  is  free  from  all  scars  and  wounds  of  evil  or  of  sin. 
There  is  no  dimness  in  this  light.  That  is  to  say,  Christ's  character  is 
perfect,  His  goodness  needs  no  increase.  There  is  no  trace  of  effort  in  His 
holiness,  no  growth  manifest  in  His  God-likeness,  from  the  beginning  to 
the  end.  There  is  no  outward  violence  that  can  be  brought  to  bear  upon 
Him  that  shall  stay  Him  in  His  purpose.  There  is  no  inward  failure  of 
strength  that  may  lead  us  to  fear  that  His  work  shall  not  be  completed. 
And  because  of  all  these  things,  because  of  His  perfect  exemption  from 
human  infirmity,  because  in  Him  was  no  sin,  He  is  manifested  to  take 
away  our  sins.  Because  in  Him  there  was  goodness  incapable  of  increase, 
being  perfect  from  the  beginning,  therefore  is  He  manifested  to  make  us 
participants  of  His  own  unalterable  and  infinite  goodness  and  purity. 
Because  no  outward  violence,  no  inward  weakness,  can  ever  stay  His 
course  nor  make  Him  abandon  His  purpose,  therefore  His  Gospel  looks 
upon  the  world  with  boundless  hopefulness,  with  calm  triumph  ;  will  not 
hear  of  there  being  any  outcast  and  irreclaimable  classes  ;  declares  it  to  be 
a  blasphemy  against  God  and  Christ  to  say  that  any  man  or  any  nations 
are  incapable  of  receiving  the  Gospel  and  of  being  redeemed  by  it,  and 
comes  with  supreme  love  and  a  calm  consciousness  of  infinite  power  to 
you,  my  brother,  in  your  deepest  darkness,  in  your  moods  most  removed 
from  God  and  purity,  and  declares  to  you  that  it  will  heal  you,  and  will 
raise  all  that  in  you  is  feeble  to  its  own  strength.  Every  man  may  pray  to 
that  strong  Christ  who  fails  not  nor  is  discouraged — 

"What  in  me  is  dark,  illumine; 
"What  is  low,  raise  and  support  "— 

m  the  confidence  that  He  will  hear  and  answer.  If  you  do  that  you  will 
not  do  it  in  vain,  but  His  gentle  hand  laid  upon  you  will  heal  the  bruises 
that  sin  has  made.  Out  of  your  weakness,  as  of  "a  reed  shaken  with 
the  wind,"  the  Restorer  will  make  a  pillar  of  marble  in  the  temple  of  His 
God.  And  out  of  your  smoking  dimness  of  wavering  light — a  spark  at  the 
best,  almost  buried  in  the  thick  smoke  that  accompanies  it — the  fostering 
Christ  will  make  a  brightness  which  shall  flame  as  the  perfect  light  that 
"shineth  more  and  more  unto  the  noontide  of  the  day." 

35 


A  DARK  CHAMBER  IN   EVERY  HEART. 

He  hath  made  me  to  dwell  in  dark  places,  as  those  that  have  been  long 
dead, — Lam.  iii.  6. 

Every  man  is  a  mystery  to  himself  as  to  his  fellows.     With 
rebruary  6. 

reverence,   we  may  say  of  each  other  as  we  say  of  God — 

"  Clouds  and  darkness  are  round  about  Him."     After  all  the  manifestations 

of  a  life,  we  remain  enigmas  to  one  another,  mysteries  to  ourselves  ;  for 

every  man  is  no  fixed  somewhat,  but  a  growing  personality,  with  dormant 

possibilities  of  good  and  evil  lying  in  him,   which  up  to   the   very  last 

moment  of  life  may  flame  up  in  altogether  unexpected  and  astonishing 

developments,  so  as  that  we  have  all  to  feel  that  after  all  self-examination 

there  lie  awful  possibilities  within  us  which  we  have  not  fathomed  ;  and 

after  all  our  knowledge  of  one  another  we  yet  do  see  but  the  surface,  and 

each  soul  dwells  alone. 

There  is  in  every  heart  a  dark  chamber.  There  are  very,  very  few 
of  us  that  dare  tell  all  our  thoughts  and  show  our  inmost  selves  to  the 
dearest  ones.  The  most  silvery  lake  that  lies  sleeping  amidst  beauty, 
itself  the  very  fairest  spot  of  all,  when  drained  off  shows  ugly  ooze  and 
filthy  mud,  and  all  manner  of  creeping  abominations  in  the  sUme.  I 
wonder  what  we  should  see  if  our  hearts  were,  so  to  speak,  drained  off, 
and  the  very  bottom  layer  of  everything  brought  into  the  light  ?  Do  you 
think  you  would  like  it  ?     Do  you  think  you  could  stand  it  ? 

Well,  then,  go  to  God  and  ask  Him  to  keep  you  from  the  unconscious 
sins.  Go  to  Him  and  ask  Him  to  root  out  of  you  the  mischiefs  that  you 
do  not  know  are  there,  and  live  humbly  and  self-distrustfully,  and  feel  that 
your  only  strength  is  :  "  Hold  Thou  me  up,  and  I  shall  be  safe."  "Hast 
thou  seen  what  they  do  in  the  dark  ?  *' 

Trust  Christ  !  and  so  thy  soul  shall  no  longer  be  like  "the  sea  that 
cannot  rest,"  full  of  turbulent  wishes,  full  of  passionate  desires  that  come 
to  nothing,  full  of  endless  moanings,  like  the  homeless  ocean  that  is  ever 
working  and  never  flings  up  any  product  of  its  work  but  yeasty  foam  and 
broken  weeds, — but  thine  heart  shall  become  translucent  and  still,  like 
some  land-locked  lake,  where  no  winds  rave  nor  tempests  rufile  ;  and  on 
its  calm  surface  there  shall  be  mirrored  the  clear  shining  of  the  unclouded 
blue,  and  the  perpetual  light  of  the  sun  that  never  goes  down. 

36 


IMPERISHABLE  HIEROGLYPHICS. 

The  sin  of  Judah  is  written  with  a  pen  of  iron,  and  with  the  point  of  a 
diamond  :  it  is  graven  upon  the  table  of  their  heart,  and  upon  the  horns  of 
your  altars. — Jer.  xvii.  i. 

You  and  I,  by  our  memory,  by  that  marvellous  faculty  that 
*  people  call  the  imagination,  by  our  desires,  are  for  ever 
painting  the  walls  of  the  inmost  chambers  of  our  hearts  with  such  pictures. 
It  is  an  awful  faculty  that  we  possess  of,  so  to  speak,  surrounding  ourselves 
with  the  pictures  of  the  things  that  we  love,  and  have  yielded  ourselves  in 
devotion  and  desire  unto. 

I  do  not  dwell  upon  that,  but  I  want  to  drop  one  very  earnest  caution 
and  beseeching  entreaty.  Mind  what  you  paint  upon  those  mystic  walls ! 
Foul  things,  "creeping  things  and  abominable  beasts,"  only  too  many  of 
you  are  tracing  there.  Mind  !  They  are  ineffaceable.  No  repentance 
will  obliterate  them.  I  do  not  know  whether  even  Heaven  can  blot  them 
out.  What  you  love,  what  you  desire,  what  you  think  about,  you  are 
photographing,  printing  on  the  walls  of  your  immortal  nature.  And  just 
as  to-day,  thousands  of  years  after  the  artists  have  been  gathered  to  the 
dust,  we  may  go  into  Egyptian  temples  and  see  the  figures  on  their  walls, 
in  all  the  freshness  of  their  first  colouring,  as  if  the  painter  had  but  laid 
down  his  pencil  a  moment  ago ;  so,  on  your  hearts,  youthful  evils,  the 
sins  of  your  boyhood,  the  pruriences  of  your  earliest  days,  may  Hve  ugly 
shapes,  that  no  tears  and  no  repentance  will  ever  wipe  out.  Nothing  can 
do  away  with  "the  marks  of  that  which  once  hath  been."  What  are  you 
painting  on  the  chambers  of  imagery  in  your  hearts  ?— obscenity,  foul 
things,  mean  things,  low  things  ?  Is  that  mystic  shrine  within  you  painted 
with  such  figures  as  in  some  chambers  in  Pompeii,  where  the  excavators 
had  to  cover  up  the  pictures  because  they  were  so  foul  ?  Or,  is  it  hke  the 
cells  in  the  Convent  of  San  Marco  at  Florence,  where  Fra  Angelico's  holy 
and  sweet  genius  painted  on  the  bare  walls,  to  be  looked  at,  as  he  fancied, 
only  by  one  devout  brother,  in  each  cell,  angel  imaginings,  and  noble, 
pure  celestial  faces  that  calm  and  hallow  those  who  gaze  upon  them? 
What  are  you  doing,  my  brother,  in  the  dark,  in  the  chambers  of  your 
imagery? 

Everything  which  you  do  leaves  its  effect  with  you  for  ever,  just  as 
long-forgotten  meals  are  in  your  blood  and  bones  to-day.  Every  act  that 
a  man  performs  has  printed  itself  upon  his  soul ;  it  has  become  a  part  of 
himself;  and,  though,  like  a  newly-painted  picture,  after  a  little  while  the 
colours  go  in,  why  is  that  ?  Only  because  they  have  entered  into  the  very 
fibre  of  the  canvas,  and  have  left  the  surface  because  they  are  incorporated 
with  the  substance,  and  they  want  but  a  touch  of  varnish  to  flash  out 
again. 

37 


FALSE  WORSHIP. 

They  worship  the  work  of  their  own  hands,  that  which  their  fingers  havt 
made. — Isa.  ii.  8. 

Febraarv  7  "^  MAN's  true  worship  is  not  the  worship  that  he  performs 
in  the  public  temple,  but  that  which  he  offers  down  in  that 
little  private  chapel  where  nobody  goes  but  himself.  Worship  is  the 
attribution  of  supreme  excellence  to,  and  the  entire  dependence  of  the 
heart  upon,  a  certain  person.  And  the  people  or  the  things  to  which  a 
man  attributes  excellence,  and  on  which  he  hangs  his  happiness  and  his 
well-being,  these  be  his  gods,  no  matter  what  his  outward  profession  is. 
You  can  find  out  what  these  are  for  yourself,  if  you  will  honestly  ask 
yourself  one  or  two  questions.  What  is  it  that  I  want  most  ?  What  is  it 
which  makes  my  ideal  of  happiness  ?  What  is  it  which  I  feel  that  I  should 
be  desperate  without  ?  What  do  I  think  about  most  naturally  and 
spontaneously,  when  the  spring  is  taken  off,  and  my  thoughts  are  allowed 
to  go  as  they  will?  And  if  the  answer  to  none  of  these  questions  is 
"God  !"  then  I  do  not  know  why  you  should  call  yourself  a  worshipper 
of  God.  It  does  not  matter,  though  we  pray  in  the  temple,  if  we  have 
the  dark  subterranean  pit,  where  our  true  adoration  is  rendered.  I  am 
afraid  there  are  a  great  many  of  us  nominal  Christians,  connected  with 
Christian  churches,  posing  before  men  as  orthodox  religionists,  who  keep 
this  private  chapel  where  we  do  our  devotions  to  an  idol  and  not  to  God. 
If  our  real  gods  could  be  made  visible,  what  a  pantheon  they  would  make  ! 
All  the  foul  forms  painted  on  that  underground  cell  would  be  paralleled  in 
the  creeping  things — which  crawl  along  the  low  earth,  and  never  soar  nor 
even  stand  erect,  and  in  the  vile,  bestial  forms  of  passion  to  which  some 
of  us  really  bow  down.  Honour,  wealth,  literary  or  other  distinction,  the 
sweet  sanctities  of  human  love  dishonoured  and  profaned  by  being  exalted 
to  the  place  which  Divine  love  should  hold,  ease,  family,  animal  appetites, 
lust,  drink— these  are  the  gods  of  some  of  us. 

"Ephraim  is  joined  to  his  idols,  let  htm  alone."  What  a  contrast 
between  that  condition  of  mind  and  the  gentle,  gracious  power  which,  like 
the  dew,  is  distilled  into  the  soul  by  the  influences  of  the  Spirit  of  God. 
The  one  is  like  the  frowning  cliffs  which  front  the  wild  Polar  ocean,  white 
with  ice  and  black  with  barren  rock  ;  the  other  like  the  limestone  walls 
that  keep  back  the  Mediterranean,  green  and  flowery  to  the  water's 
edge — a  barrier  as  complete,  but  all  draped  with  beauty,  and  fruitful  and 
sunny. 

38 


WORSHIP  GOD. 

Give  unto  the  Lord  the  ~gloiy  due  unto  His  Name :  bring  an  offering, 
and  come  before  Him :  worship  the  Lord  in  the  beauty  of  holiness. — 
I  Chron.  xvi.  29. 

february  8.    "^^^  yourselves,  not  whom  do  you  worship  before  the  eyes 
of  men,  but  who  is  the  God  that  in  your  inmost  heart  you 
bow  down  before  ?    What  do  you  do  in  the  dark  ?     That  is  the  question. 
Whom  do  you  worship  there  ?     The  other  thing  is  not  worship  at  all. 

And  do  not  forget  that  all  such  diversion  of  supreme  love  and  depend- 
ence from  God  alone  is  like  the  sin  of  the  men  in  Ezekiel's  vision 
(Ezek.  viii.),  that  it  is  sacrilege.  They  had  taken  a  chamber  in  the  very 
Temple,  and  turned  that  into  a  temple  of  the  false  gods.  Who  is  your  heart 
made  to  shrine  ?  Why  !  every  stone,  if  I  may  so  say,  of  the  fabric  of 
our  being  bears  marked  upon  it  that  it  was  laid  in  order  to  make  a 
dwelUng-place  for  God.  Who  are  you  meant  to  worship,  by  the  witness 
of  the  very  constitution  of  your  nature  and  make  of  your  spirits  ?  Is  there 
anybody  but  One  that  is  worthy  to  get  the  priceless  gift  of  human  love 
absolute  and  entire  ?  Is  there  any  but  One  to  whom  it  is  aught  but 
degradation  and  blasphemy  for  a  man  to  bow  down  ?  Is  there  any  being 
but  One  that  can  still  the  tumult  of  my  spirit,  and  that  can  satisfy  the 
immortal  yearnings  of  my  soul  ?  We  were  made  for  God  ;  and  whensoever 
we  turn  the  hopes,  the  desires,  the  affections,  the  obedience,  and  that 
which  is  the  root  of  them  all,  the  confidence  that  ought  to  fix  and  fasten 
upon  Him,  to  other  creatures,  we  are  guilty,  not  only  of  idolatry,  but  of 
sacrilege.  We  commit  the  sin  of  which  that  wild  reveller  in  Babylon  was 
guilty,  when,  at  his  great  feast,  in  the  very  madness  of  his  presumption,  he 
bade  them  to  bring  forth  the  sacred  vessels  from  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem  : 
"And  the  king  and  his  princes  and  his  concubine^  drank  in  them,  and 
praised  the  gods."  So  we  take  the  sacred  chalice  of  the  human  heart,  on 
which  there  is  marked  the  sign-manual  of  heaven,  claiming  it  for  God's, 
and  fill  it  with  the  spiced  and  drugged  draught  of  our  own  sensualities  and 
evils,  and  pour  out  a  libation  to  vain  and  false  gods.  Render  unto  Him 
that  which  is  His ;  and  see,  even  upon  the  walls,  scrabbled  all  over  with 
the  deformities  that  we  have  painted  there,  lingering  traces,  hke  those  cf 
some  dropping  fresco  in  a  roofless  Italian  church,  which  suggest  the  serene 
and  perfect  beauty  of  the  image  of  the  One  whose  hkeness  was  originally 
traced  there,  and  for  whose  worship  it  was  all  built. 

The  imitation  of  the  object  of  worship  has  always  been  felt  to  be  the 
highest  form  of  worship.  Many  an  ancient  teacher,  beside  the  Stoic 
philosopher,  has  said,  "  He  who  copies  the  gods  worships  them 
adequately. " 

39 


THOU   GOD   SEEST   ME. 

And  she  caVed  the  Name  of  the  Lord  that  spake  unto  her,  Thou  art  a 
God  that  seeth  :  for  she  said,  Have  I  even  here  looked  after  tinn  that  seeth 
iue?^^ — Gen.  xvi.  13. 

_,  9     ^^    Ezekiel's    vision    of    the     "Chambers    of    Imagery" 

^  '  (Ezek.  viii.)  we  see  the  sudden  crashing  in  upon  the 
cowering  worshippers  of  the  revealing  light.  Apparently  the  picture 
suggests  that  these  elders  knew  not  the  eyes  that  were  looking  upon  them. 
They  were  hugging  themselves  in  the  conceit,  "the  Lord  seeth  not  ;  the 
Lord  hath  forsaken  the  earth."  And  all  the  while,  all  unknown,  God  and 
His  prophet  stand  in  the  doorway  and  see  it  all.  Not  a  finger  lifted,  not 
a  sign  to  the  foolish  worshippers,  of  His  presence  and  inspection,  but  in 
stern  silence  He  records  and  remembers. 

And  does  that  need  much  bending  to  make  it  an  impressive  form  of 
putting  a  solemn  truth  ?  There  are  plenty  of  us — alas  !  alas  !  that  it 
should  be  so — to  whom  it  is  the  least  welcome  of  all  thoughts  that  there 
in  the  doorway  stand  God  and  His  Word.  Why  should  it  be,  my  brother, 
that  the  properly  blessed  thought  of  a  Divine  eye  resting  upon  you  should 
be  to  you  like  the  thought  of  a  policeman's  bull's-eye  to  a  thief?  Why 
should  it  not  be  rather  the  sweetest  and  the  most  calming  and  strength- 
giving  and  companioning  of  all  convictions?  "Thou  God  seest  me." 
The  little  child  runs  about  the  lawn  perfectly  happy  as  long  as  she  knows 
that  her  mother  is  watching  her  from  the  window.  And  it  ought  to  be 
sweet  and  blessed  to  each  of  us  to  know  that  there  is  no  darkness  where  a 
Father's  eye  comes  not.  Do  not  think  of  His  eye  as  the  prisoner  in  a 
solitary  cell  thinks  of  the  pin-hole  somewhere  in  the  wall  there,  through 
which  a  jailor's  jealous  inspection  may  at  any  moment  be  glaring  in  upon 
him;  but  think  of  Him  your  Brother,  who  "knew  what  was  in  man," 
and  who  knows  each  man,  and  see  in  Christ  the  all-knowing  Godhood 
that  loves  yet  better  than  it  knows,  and  beholds  the  hidden  evils  of  mens 
hearts,  in  order  that  it  may  cleanse  and  forgive  all  which  it  beholds. 

One  day  a  light  will  fiash  in  upon  all  the  dark  cells.  We  must  all  be 
manifest  before  the  judgment-seat  of  Christ.  Do  you  like  that  thought  ? 
Can  you  stand  it  ?  Are  you  ready  for  it  ?  My  friend  !  let  Jesus  Christ 
come  to  you  with  His  light.  Let  Him  come  into  the  dark  corners  ot  your 
hearts.  Cast  all  your  sinfulness,  known  and  unknown,  upon  Him  that 
died  on  the  Cross  for  every  soul  of  man,  and  He  will  come  ;  and  His 
liglit,  streaming  inlo  your  hearts,  like  the  sunbeam  upon  foul  garments, 
v.ill  cleanse  and  bleach  them  wliile  by  its  shining  upon  them.  Let  Him 
come  into  your  hearts  by  your  lowly  penitence,  by  your  humble  faith, 
and  all  these  vile  shapes  that  you  have  painted  on  its  walls  will,  like 
phosphorescent  pictures  in  the  daytime,  pale  and  disappear  when  the  Sun 
of  Righteousness,  with  healing  on  His  beams,  floods  your  soul,  making  na 
part  dark,  and  turning  all  into  a  Temple  of  the  living  God. 

40 


THE   LOVE  THAT  IS  GIVEN. 

Behold  what  manner  of  love  the  Father  hath  ber towed  iipon  its,  that  we 
should  be  called  the  children  of  God :  and  such  we  are. — I  John  iii.  I. 

We   are   called   upon   to   come    with   our   little   vessels   to 

■    measure  the  contents  of  the   great    ocean,   to   plumb  with 

our  short  lines  the  infinite  abyss,  and  not  only  to  estimate  the  quantity, 

but  the  quality,  of  that  love,  which,  in  both,  surpasses  all  our  means  of 

comparison  and  conception. 

Properly  speaking,  we  can  do  neither  the  one  nor  the  other,  for  we 
have  no  line  long  enough  to  sound  the  depths,  and  no  experience  which 
will  give  us  a  standard  with  which  to  compare  its  quality.  But  all  that 
we  can  do,  John  would  have  us  do — that  is,  work,  and  ever  look  at  the 
workings  of  that  love  till  we  form  some  not  wholly  inadequate  idea  of  it. 

We  can  no  more  "  behold  what  manner  of  love  the  Father  has  bestowed 
on  us"  than  we  can  look  with  undimmed  eyes  right  into  the  middle  of 
the  sun.  But  we  can  in  some  measure  imagine  the  tremendous  and 
beneficent  forces  that  ride  forth  horsed  on  his  beams  to  distances  which 
the  imagination  faints  in  trying  to  grasp,  and  reach  their  journey's  end 
unwearied  and  ready  for  their  tasks  as  when  it  began.  Here  are  we 
ninety  odd  millions  of  miles  from  the  centre  of  the  system,  yet  warmed 
by  its  heat,  lighted  by  its  light,  and  touched  for  good  by  its  power  in  a 
thousand  ways.  All  that  has  been  going  on  for  no  one  knows  how  many 
aons.  How  mighty  the  Power  which  produces  these  effects  !  In  like 
manner,  who  can  gaze  into  the  fiery  depths  of  that  infinite  Godhead,  into 
the  ardours  of  that  immeasurable,  incomparable,  inconceivable  love  ?  But 
we  can  look  at  and  measure  its  activities.  We  can  see  what  it  does,  and 
so  can  in  some  degree  understand  it,  and  feel  that  after  all  we  have  a 
measure  for  the  Immeasurable,  a  comparison  for  the  Incomparable,  and 
can  thus  *'  Behold  what  manner  of  love  the  Father  hath  bestowed  on  us." 

We  may  gain  another  measure  of  the  greatness  of  this  love  if  we  put 
an  emphasis  on  one  word,  and  think  of  the  love  given  to  "wj,"  such 
creatures  as  we  are.  Out  of  the  depths  we  cry  to  Him,  not  only  by  the 
voice  oi  our  supplications,  but  even  when  we  raise  no  call  of  entreaty,  our 
misery  pleads  with  His  merciful  heart,  and  from  the  heights  there  comes 
upon  our  wretchedness  and  sin  the  rush  of  this  great  love,  like  a  cataract, 
which  sweeps  away  all  our  sins,  and  floods  us  with  its  own  blessedness  and 
joy.  The  more  we  know  ourselves,  the  more  wonderingly  and  thankfully 
shall  we  bow  down  our  hearts  before  Him,  as  we  measure  His  mercy  by 
our  unworthiness. 

41 


THE  CROSS  THE   PROOF  OF   GOD'S   LOVE. 

But  Cod  comtiiendetJi  His  own  love  toward  us,  in  that,  while  we  were  yet 
sifiners,  Christ  died  for  us, — Rom.  v.  8. 

We  have  to  turn  to  the  work  of  Christ,  and  especially  to 
ary  .  j^.^  death,  if  we  would  estimate  the  love  of  God.  The  most 
wonderful  revelation  to  every  heart  of  man  of  the  depths  of  that  Divine 
heart  lies  in  the  gift  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  Apostle  bids  me  "behold  what 
manner  of  love."  And  I  turn  to  the  Cross,  and  I  see  there  a  love  which 
shrinks  from  no  sacrifice,  but  gives  "  Him  up  to  death  for  us  all."  I  turn 
to  the  Cross,  and  I  see  there  a  love  which  is  evoked  by  no  loveableness  on 
my  part,  but  comes  from  the  depth  of  His  own  Infinite  Being,  who  loves 
because  He  must,  and  who  must  because  He  is  God.  I  turn  to  the  Cross, 
and  I  see  there  manifested  a  love  which  sighs  for  recognition,  which  desires 
nothing  of  me  but  the  repayment  of  my  poor  affection  ;  and  I  see  there 
a  love  that  will  not  be  put  away  by  all  sinfulness  and  shortcomings  and 
evil.  So,  streaming  through  the  darkness  of  eclipse,  and  speaking  to  me 
even  in  the  awful  silence  in  which  the  Son  of  man  died  there  for  sin,  I 
"behold,"  and  I  hear  the  "  manner  of  love  that  the  Father  hath  bestowed 
upon  us."  Undeserved  and  Infinite,  boundless  and  endless,  in  its  measure 
measureless,  in  its  quality  transcendent — the  love  of  God  to  me  in  Jesus 
Christ  my  Saviour. 

In  like  manner  we  have  to  think,  if  we  would  estimate  the  "  manner 
of  this  love,"  that  through  and  in  the  great  sacrifice  of  Jesus  Christ  there 
comes  to  us  the  gift  of  a  Divine  life  like  His  own.  Perhaps  it  might  be 
a  refinement  of  interpretation  ;  but  it  certainly  does  seem  to  me  that  that 
expression,  "To  bestow  His  love  upon"  us,  is  not  altogether  the  same 
as  to  love  us,  but  that  there  is  a  greater  depth  in  it.  There  may  be  some 
idea  of  that  love  itself  being  as  it  were  infused  into  us,  and  not  merely  of 
its  consequences  or  tokens  being  given  to  us ;  as  Paul  speaks  of  "  the 
love  of  God  shed  abroad  in  our  hearts"  by  the  spirit  which  is  given  to  us. 
At  all  events  this  communication  of  Divine  life,  which  is  at  bottom  Divine 
love — for  God's  life  is  God's  love — is  His  great  gift  to  men. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  these  two  are  the  great  tokens,  consequences,  and 
measures  of  God's  love  to  us — the  gift  of  Christ,  and  that  which  is  the 
sequel  and  outcome  thereof,  the  gift  of  the  Spirit  which  is  breathed  into 
Christian  spirits.  These  two  gifts,  which  are  one  gift,  embrace  all  that 
the  world  needs.  Christ  for  us  and  Christ  in  us  must  both  be  taken  into 
account  if  you  would  estimate  the  manner  of  the  love  that  God  has 
bestowed  upon  us. 

42 


FATHERHOOD  AND  SONSHIP. 

Beloved,  now  are  we  children  of  God,  and  it  is  not  yet  made  manifest 
what  we  shall  be.  We  know  thai,  if  He  shall  be  manifested^  we  shall  be 
like  Him  ;  for  we  shall  see  Him  even  as  He  is. — I  John  iii.  2. 

February  12.  "^^^  doctrine  of  the  New  Testament  about  the  Fatherhood 
of  God  and  the  sonship  of  man  does  not  in  the  sUghtest 
degree  interfere  with  these  three  great  truths,  that  all  men,  though  the 
features  of  the  common  humanity  may  be  almost  battered  out  of  recognition 
in  them,  are  all  children  of  God  because  He  made  them  ;  that  they  are 
children  of  God  because  still  there  lies  in  them  something  of  the  hkeness 
of  the  creative  Father ;  and,  blessed  be  His  name !  that  they  are  all 
children  of  God  because  He  loves  and  provides  and  cares  for  every  one  of 
them.  All  that  is  blessedly  and  eternally  true ;  but  it  is  also  true  that 
there  is  a  higher  relation  than  that  to  which  the  name  "  Children  of  God  " 
is  more  accurately  given,  and  to  which  in  the  New  Testament  that  name 
is  confined ;  and  if  you  ask  what  it  is,  let  me  quote  to  you  three  passages 
in  this  Epistle  which  will  answer  the  question:  "Whosoever  beUeveth 
that  Jesus  is  the  Christ  is  born  of  God,"  that  is  the  first ;  *'  Every  one  that 
doeth  righteousness  is  born  of  God,"  that  is  the  second ;  "  Every  one 
that  loveth  is  born  of  God,"  that  is  the  third.  Or,  to  put  them  all  into 
one  expression,  which  holds  them  all,  in  the  first  chapter  of  John's  Gospel 
you  find  this,  in  the  great  words  of  his  prologue  :  **  To  as  many  as 
received  Him  to  them  gave  He  power  to  become  the  sons  of  God." 
Believing  in  Christ  with  loving  trust  produces,  and  as  the  result  of  that 
belief,  doing  righteousness  and  loving  the  brethren  prove,  the  fact  of 
sonship,  in  its  highest  and  its  truest  sense. 

What  is  implied  in  that  great  name  by  which  the  Almighty  gives  us  a 
name  and  a  place  as  of  sons  and  daughters  ?  Clearly,  first,  a  communicated 
life;  therefore,  second,  a  kindred  nature  which  shall  be  "pure  as  He  is 
pure  "  ;  and,  third,  growth  to  full  maturity. 

This  sonship,  which  is  no  mere  empty  name,  is  the  aim  and  purpose 
of  God's  dealings,  of  all  the  revelation  of  His  love,  and  most  especially 
the  great  gift  of  His  love  in  Christ.  Has  that  purpose  been  accomplished 
in  you?  Have  you  ever  looked  at  that  great  gift  of  love  that  God  has 
given  you  on  purpose  to  make  you  His  child  ?  If  you  have,  why  has  it 
not  made  you  one?  Are  you  trusting  to  Jesus  Christ,  whom  God  has 
sent  forth  that  we  might  receive  the  standing  of  sons  in  Him?  Are  you 
a  child  of  God  because  a  brother  of  that  Saviour?  Have  you  received 
the  gift  of  a  Divine  life  through  Him  ?  My  friend  !  remember  the  grim 
alternative  :  a  child  of  God  or  a  child  of  the  devil !  Bitter  words, 
narrow  words,  uncharitable  words — as  people  call  them  !  And  I  believe, 
and  therefore  I  am  bound  to  say  it,  true  words,  which  it  concerns  you  to 
lay  to  heart. 

43 


OUR   SONSHIP   NO   EMPTY  TITLE. 

Let  us  not  love  in  word,  neither  with  the  tongue,  but  in  deed  and  truth. 
Hereby  shall  we  know  that  we  are  of  the  truth,  and  shall  assure  our  heart 
before  Him. — I  John  iii.  i8,  19. 

Tebruaxy  13.  "  ^^^  ^^'^^  ^^  are."  This  is  a  kind  of  "aside,"  in  which 
John  adds  the  Amen  for  himself  and  for  his  poor  brothers 
and  sisters,  toihng  and  moiling,  obscure  among  the  crowds  of  Ephesus,  to 
the  great  truth.  He  asserts  his  and  their  glad  consciousness  of  the  reality 
of  the  fact  of  their  sonship,  which  they  know  to  be  no  empty  title.  He 
asserts,  too,  the  present  position  of  that  sonship,  realising  it  as  a  fact 
to-day,  amid  all  commonplace  vulgarities  and  carking  cares  and  petty  aims 
of  life's  little  day.  "Such  we  are" — the  "Here  am  I,  Father,"  of  the 
child,  answering  the  Father's  call,  "My  Son."  He  turns  doctrine  into 
experience.  He  is  not  content  with  merely  having  the  thought  in  his 
creed,  but  his  heart  clasps  it,  and  his  whole  nature  says  Amen  !  to  the 
great  truth.  I  ask  you,  do  you  do  that  ?  Do  not  be  content  with  hearing 
the  truth,  or  even  with  assenting  to  it,  and  believing  it  in  your  under- 
standings. The  truth  is  nothing  to  you,  unless  you  have  made  it  your 
very  own  by  faith.  Do  not  be  satisfied  with  the  orthodox  confession  ; 
unless  it  has  touched  your  heart,  and  made  your  whole  soul  thrill  with 
thankful  gladness  and  quiet  triumph,  it  is  nothing  to  you. 

The  mere  belief  of  thirty-nine,  or  thirty-nine  thousand,  Articles  of 
Christianity  is  nothing  ;  but  when  a  man  has  a  true  heart-faith  in  Him  whom 
all  articles  are  meant  to  make  us  know  and  love,  then  dogma  becomes  life, 
and  the  doctrine  feeds  the  soul.  Does  it  do  so  with  you,  my  brother  ?  Can 
you  say,  "  And  such  are  we  "  ?  Take  another  lesson.  The  Apostle  was  not 
afraid  to  say,  "I  know  that  I  am  a  child  of  God."  There  are  many  very 
good  people  whose  tremulous,  timorous  lips  have  never  ventured  to  say 
"  I  know."  They  will  say,  "Well,  I  hope,"  or  sometimes,  as  if  that  was 
not  uncertain  enough,  they  will  put  in  an  abverb  or  two,  and  say,  "  I 
humbly  hope  that  I  am."  It  is  a  far  robuster  kind  of  Christianity,  a  far 
truer  one,  aye  !  and  a  humbler  one,  too,  that  throws  all  considerations  of 
my  own  character  and  merits,  and  all  the  rest  of  that  rubbish,  clean  behind 
me  ;  and  when  God  says  "  My  son  !  "  says  "  My  Father  "  ;  and  when  God 
calls  us  His  sons  and  daughters,  leaps  up  and  gladly  answers,  "And  we 
are  ! "  Do  not  be  afraid  of  being  too  confident,  if  your  confidence  is  built 
on  God,  and  not  on  yourself;  but  be  afraid  of  being  too  diffident,  and  be 
afraid  of  having  a  great  deal  of  self-righteousness  masquerading  under  the 
guise  of  such  a  profound  consciousness  of  your  own  unworthiness  that  you 
dare  not  call  yourself  a  child  of  God.  It  is  not  a  question  of  worthiness 
or  unworthiness  ;  it  is  a  question,  in  the  first  place  and  mainly,  of  the 
truth  of  Christ's  promise  and  the  sufficiency  of  Christ's  Cross ;  and  in  a 
very  subordinate  degree  of  anything  belonging  to  you. 

44 


THE  NATURAL  A  TYPE   OF  THE  SPIRITUAL. 
He  that  is  spiritual  judgeth  all  things. — I  CoR.  ii.  15. 

The  natural    impulse   of  us  all  is  to  find  shadows  and 
February  14i 

symbols  of  spiritual  life  in  natural  existence.     He  who  spake 

as  never  man  spake,  spake  in  parables,  and,  knowing  all  things,  took 
bread  and  said,  "This  is  My  body."  Surely,  besides  all  the  other  purposes 
of  that  institution,  there  is  this  also  to  teach  us  to  see  everywhere  emblems 
of  Him.  Every  day  we  walk  amidst  the  "  outward  and  visible  signs  of  an 
inward  and  spiritual  grace,"  and  in  that  meaning  of  the  word  sacrament, 
the  true  and  Christian  view  of  this  wonderful  world  is  that  it  is  all  one 
great  sacrament.  All  the  elements  stand  as  types  of  spiritual  things. 
The  sunshine  is  to  speak  to  us  of  the  "light  of  the  world,"  the  life  of  men. 
The  wind  blows — an  emblem  of  that  Spirit  which,  though  He  comes  low 
and  soft,  as  befits  a  "Comforter,"  can  rise  and  wax  into  a  tempest  against 
all  "  the  lofty  and  lifted  up."  The  water  speaks  of  the  stream  of  life  and 
the  drink  for  thirsty  souls ;  and  the  fire,  of  His  purity  and  of  His  wrath. 
All  objects  are  consecrated  to  Him.  The  trees  of  the  field,  in  a  thousand 
places,  speak  of  the  "root  of  David,"  and  the  vine  of  which  we  are  all 
branches.  The  everlasting  mountains  are  His  "righteousness"  ;  the  mighty 
deep,  His  judgments."  All  the  Processes  of  nature  have  been  laid  hold  of 
by  Him.  The  gentle  dew  falls  a  promise,  and  the  lashing  rain  forebodes 
another  storm,  when  many  a  sand-built  house  shall  be  swept  away.  Every 
spring  is  a  prophecy  ot  the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  every  harvest  a 
promise  of  the  coming  of  His  kingdom  and  the  blessed  issues  of  all 
service  for  Him.  All  living  things,  in  like  manner,  testify  of  Him.  In 
that  sense,  as  in  others.  He  is  lord  over  the  fish  of  the  seas,  and  over  the 
fowls  ol  the  air,  and  over  the  beasts  of  the  field.  The  eagle  "stirring  up 
its  nest,"  the  "hen  gathering  her  chickens  under  her  wings,"  speak  of 
Him,  His  functions,  and  His  relations  to  us.  The  "  Lion  of  the  tribe  of 
Judah"  and  the  "Lamb  of  God"  were  His  names.  All  occupations 
of  men,  also,  are  consecrated  to  reveal  Him.  He  laid  His  hand  upon  the 
sower  and  the  vine-dresser,  upon  the  ploughman  and  the  shepherd,  upon 
the  merchant  and  the  warrior,  upon  the  king  and  the  prophet  and  the 
judge,  upon  the  teacher  and  the  lawgiver,  as  being  emblems  of  Himself. 
All  relations  between  men  testify  of  Him.  Father  and  mother,  brother  and 
friend,  husband,  parent,  and  children,  they  are  all  consecrated  for  this 
purpose. 

45 


CONTEMPLATION   OF  GOD'S   LOVE  TO   US. 

Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,  which  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world.— 
John  i.  29. 

"Behold"  is  not  the  mere  exclamation  which  you  often 
February  15. 

find  Loth  in  the  Old  and  in  the  New  Testaments,   which 

is  simply  intended  to  emphasise  the  importance  of  what  follows,  but  it 

is  a  distinct  command  to  do  the  thing — to  look  and  to  ever  look,  and  to 

look   again,  and  live   in  the  habitual  and  devout  contemplation  of  that 

infinite  and  wondrous  love  of  God. 

I  have  but  two  remarks  to  make  about  that,  and  the  one  is  this,  that 
that  habit  of  devout  and  thankful  meditation  upon  the  love  of  God,  as 
manifested  in  the  sacrifice  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  consequent  gift  of  the 
Divine  Spirit,  joined  with  the  humble,  thankful  conviction  that  I  am  a 
child  of  God  thereby,  lies  at  the  foundation  of  all  vigorous  and  happy 
Christian  life.  How  can  a  thing  which  you  do  not  touch  with  your  hands 
and  see  with  your  eyes  produce  any  effect  upon  you,  unless  you  think 
about  it  ?  How  can  a  religion  which  can  only  influence  through  thought 
and  emotion  do  anything  in  you,  or  for  you,  unless  you  occupy  your 
thoughts  and  your  feelings  with  it?  It  is  sheer  nonsense  to  suppose  it 
possible.  Things  which  do  not  appeal  to  sense  are  real  to  us,  and,  indeed, 
we  may  say,  are  not  at  all  for  us,  only  as  we  think  about  them.  If  you 
had  a  dear  friend  in  Australia,  and  never  thought  about  him,  he  would 
even  cease  to  be  dear,  and  it  would  be  all  one  to  you  as  if  he  were  dead. 
If  he  were  really  dear  to  you,  you  would  think  about  him. 

We  may  say — though,  of  course,  there  are  other  ways  of  looking  at  the 
matter — that,  in  a  very  intelligible  sense,  the  degree  in  which  we  think 
about  Christ,  and  in  Him  behold  the  love  of  God,  is  a  fairly  accurate 
measure  of  our  Christianity. 

Now,  will  you  apply  that  sharp  test  to  yesterday,  and  the  day  before, 
and  the  day  before  that,  and  tell  me  how  much  of  your  life  was  pagan 
and  how  much  of  it  was  Christian?  You  will  never  make  anything  of 
your  professed  Christianity,  you  will  never  get  a  drop  of  happiness  or  any 
kind  of  good  out  of  it  ;  it  will  neither  be  a  strength,  nor  a  joy,  nor  a 
defence  to  you,  unless  you  made  it  your  habitual  occupation  to  "  behold 
the  manner  of  love  "  ;  and  look,  and  look,  and  look,  ever  look,  until  it 
warms  and  fills  your  heart. 

46 


A  GLORIOUS   EFFORT. 

/  determined  not  to  know  anything  atnong  you,  save  Jesus  Christ,  and 
Hiin  crucified. — I  Cor.  ii.  2. 

We  cannot  keep  the  great  sight  of  Christ's  Cross  before 
February  16.  i'  t>  & 

the  eye  of  our  minds  without  eiTort.  You  will  have  very 
resolutely  to  look  away  from  something  else,  if,  amid  all  the  dazzling 
gauds  of  earth,  we  are  to  look  over  them  all  to  the  far-off  lustre  of  that 
heavenly  love.  Just  as  timorous  people  in  a  thunderstorm  will  light  a 
candle  that  they  may  not  see  the  lightning,  so  many  Christians  have  their 
hearts  filled  with  the  twinkling  light  of  some  miserable  tapers  of  earthly 
care  and  pursuits,  which,  though  they  be  dim  and  smoky,  are  bright 
enough  to  make  it  hard  to  see  the  silent  depths  of  heaven,  though  it  blaze 
with  a  myriad  stars  If  you  hold  a  sixpence  close  enough  up  to  the  pupil 
of  your  eye,  it  will  keep  you  from  seeing  the  sun  ;  and  if  you  hold  the 
world  close  to  mind  and  heart,  as  many  of  you  do,  you  will  only  see, 
round  the  rim  of  it,  the  least  tiny  ring  of  the  overlapping  love  of  God. 
What  the  world  lets  you  see  you  will  see,  and  the  world  will  take  care 
that  it  will  let  you  see  very  little — not  enough  to  do  you  any  good,  not 
enough  to  deliver  you  from  its  chains.  Wrench  yourself  away,  my 
brother,  from  the  absorbing  contemplation  of  Birmingham  jewellery  and 
paste,  and  look  at  the  true  riches.  If  you  have  ever  had  some  glimpses 
of  that  wondrous  love,  and  ever  been  drawn  by  it  to  cry,  Abba,  Father  I 
do  not  let  the  trifles  which  belong  not  to  your  true  inheritance  fill  your 
thoughts,  but  renew  the  vision,  and  by  determined  turning  away  of  your 
eyes  from  beholding  vanity,  look  away  from  the  things  that  are  seen,  that 
you  may  gaze  upon  the  things  that  are  not  seen,  and  chiefest  among  them, 
on  the  love  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord. 

If  you  have  never  looked  on  that  love,  I  beseech  you  now  to  turn  aside 
and  see  this  great  sight.  Do  not  let  that  brightness  burn  unnoticed  while 
your  eyes  are  fixed  on  the  ground  like  men  absorbed  in  gold-digging,  while 
a  glorious  sunshine  is  flushing  the  eastern  sky.  Look  to  the  unspeakable, 
incomparable,  immeasurable  love  of  God,  in  giving  up  His  Son  to  death 
for  us  all.  Look  and  be  saved.  Look  and  live.  Behold  what  manner  of 
love  the  Father  hath  bestowed  on  you,  and,  beholding,  you  will  become  the 
sons  and  daughters  of  the  Lord  God  Almighty. 

47 


PETER'S    PENITENT    LOVE.— I. 

Jesus  saitit  to  Simon  Peter :  Simon,  son  of  Jonas,  lovest  thou  Me  more 
than  these  ?  He  saith  unto  Him  :  Yea  1  Lord;  Thou  knoivest  thai  I  love 
Thee.     He  saith  unto  him  :  Feed  My  hinibs. — John  xxi.  15. 

F  b  uarv  17  ^^  these  words  there  is  an  obvious  intention  to  recall 
'  various  points  in  the  past  of  the  Apostle's  history.  In 
their  emphatic  dwelling  on  the  human  side  of  his  character,  they  suggest 
that  by  his  fall  he  has  forfeited  the  name  of  the  "man  of  rock,"  and 
has  proved  himself,  not  stable,  but  uncertain  as  the  shifting  wind.  And 
so  they  would  pierce  to  his  heart.  The  fact  of  his  risen  Lord  coming  to 
him  with  a  question  about  his  love  upon  His  lips  v/ould  be  a  dagger  in 
his  soul ;  all  the  more  because  he  knew  that  the  question  was  a  reasonable 
one,  since  he  had  so  shamefully  sinned  against  love.  Now,  all  this  de- 
liberate raking  up  of  the  man's  past  sin  looks  to  be  very  cruel.  Is  that 
like  "not  breaking  the  bruised  reed  nor  quenching  the  smoking  flax"? 
Does  that  seem  like  the  generosity  of  love  which  is  ashamed  to  recall 
the  transgression  that  it  forgives?  Would  not  Christ  have  been  nearer  the 
ideal  of  Divine  and  perfect  forgiveness  if  He  had  not  put  Peter  through  this 
torture  of  remembrance  ?  No  !  For  the  happiest  love  and  the  deepest 
to  Him  must  always  rest  upon  the  contrite  remembrance  of  sins  forgiven. 
Therefore  the  tenderest  and  divinest  work  of  Christ  is  to  help  His  penitent 
servant  to  a  true  penitence.  He  cannot  give  His  love,  nor  honour  with 
service,  unless  we  acknowledge  and  abandon  our  sin  before  Him.  He  will 
make  sure  work.  The  keenest  cut  of  the  surgeon's  knife  is  not  cruel. 
The  malignant  humours  have  to  be  drained  out,  aye  !  even  squeezed  out 
by  a  hand,  the  pressure  of  which,  because  it  is  firm,  however  gentle  it 
may  be,  will  always  be  painful.  And  it  is  poor  surgery  to  begin  with 
bandages  and  styptics,  when  what  is  wanted  is  that  the  ulcer  shall  be  cut 
open  and  the  putrescent  matter  got  rid  of.  Therefore  does  Christ  thus 
hold  the  man  right  up  against  his  past,  and  make  him,  as  the  preliminary 
to  the  fullest  communication  and  reception  of  His  love,  feel  intensely  and 
bitterly  the  rcaHty  of  his  transgression. 

Peter's  answer  shows  how  he  has  learned  some  lessons,  at  any  rate,  by 
his  fall  and  restoration.  He  will  not  hesitate  one  moment  to  avow  his 
love.  The  consciousness  of  his  treachery  does  not  make  his  lips  falter 
in  the  very  least.  He  is  ready  at  once  with  his  "Yes  !"  But,  as  many 
of  you  know,  the  love  which  he  professes  is  not  exactly  the  love  which 
Christ  asks  about.  The  two  words  in  the  question  and  in  the  answer, 
which  are  both  translated — and  rightly  translated — "love,"  are  not  the 
same.  And  though  this  is  not  the  place  to  try  and  draw  the  delicate  lines 
of  distinction  that  separate  between  them,  it  is  important  for  the  whole 
understanding  of  the  story  to  notice  that  the  love  which  Peter  claims  is, 
in  some  sense,  inferior  to  the  love  which  Christ  asks.  He  will  not  say 
that  he  has  climbed  to  the  heights  of  that  loftier,  diviner  emotion,  but 
he  will  avow  that  he  knows  he  has  a  hearty,  human,  natural  affection 
for  his  Master,  such  as  we  cherish  for  those  that  are  dear  to  us.  So 
far  he  will  go,  but  he  had  rather  that  his  Master  should  judge  him  than 
that  he  should  judge  himself.  "He  knows  notliing  against  himself"  in 
this  matter,  yet  he  refers  himself  to  the  Lord  :  '*  Thou  knowest  all  things; 
Thou  knowest  that  I  love  Thee." 

48 


PETER'S   PENITENT   LOVE.— II. 

He  saith  to  him  again  a  second  time,  Simon,  son  of  Jonas,  Icvest  thou 
Me  ?  He  saith  unto  Him,  Yea,  Lord ;  Thou  knowest  that  I  love  Thee.  He 
saith  unto  him,  Tend  My  sheep. — John  xxi.  1 6. 

_  ,  .g     The  second  question  and  the  second  answer  are  identical 

'  with  the  first.  Again  Christ  craves  the  higher  ;  again  the 
Apostle,  in  his  steadfast  humility,  will  not  go  one  step  beyond  what  he 
feels  he  is  sure  about,  nor  pretend  to  have  anything  deeper  or  loftier  than 
he  knows  he  has.  And  so  once  more  he  answers  word  for  word  as  he  has 
answered  before. 

And  then  with  the  third  question  and  answer,  this  struggle,  if  I  may 
call  it  so,  between  Christ  and  Peter  comes  to  an  end.  Christ  accepts 
Peter's  word,  substitutes  it  in  His  question  for  the  word  which  He  had 
previously  employed  ;  and  so,  in  one  aspect,  seems  to  yield  to  His  Apostle, 
as  if  He  said,  "Well  then  !  if  you  cannot  give  me  the  higher  I  will  take 
the  lower,  and  be  glad  to  have  even  that."  But,  in  another  aspect  the 
change  of  the  word  sharpens  the  point  of  the  question,  and  seems  to  fling 
a  doubt  over  the  genuineness  even  of  the  lower  kind  of  affection  which 
Peter  was  wilHng  to  profess.  "Are  you  so  sure,  then,  that  even  as  men 
love  one  another,  you  love  Me?"  Did  the  denial  look  as  "if  you  had 
ati-y  kind  of  love  in  your  heart  to  Me  "  ?  And  the  question  thus  sharpened 
pierces  deeper  into  the  Apostle's  heart,  and  gives  rise  to  a  little  dash  of 
impatience  at  being  doubted,  which  is  a  better  proof  of  his  love  than  many 
words  would  have  been.  He  will  no  more  say  "Yes!"  But  he  will 
leave  it  to  the  Master  to  answer  for  him,  as  if  he  said,  "Well,  then  !  if 
you  do  not  believe  me,  I  will  say  nothing  more  ;  but  look  at  me !  Thou 
knowest  all  things.  Here  is  my  heart ;  take  it  and  probe  it !  I  say 
nothing;  Thou  seest  that  I  love  Thee."     And  so  the  questioning  ends. 

Now,  take  these  two  figures  just  as  they  stand  before  us.  Look  ! 
There  is  Jesus  Christ,  fresh  from  the  Cross,  coming  to  you  for  a  double 
purpose,  to  remind  you  of  your  unworthiness,  your  failures,  your  denials, 
your  forgetfulness  of  Him  ;  and  to  beseech  you  for  your  love.  What  a 
depth  of  perfect  placability  and  forgiveness  there  is  in  that,  that  He  comes 
to  the  denier  with  only  these  gentle  and  delicate  reminders,  with  no 
spoken  rebuke,  with  no  uttered  word  in  reference  to  the  past !  His 
questions  imply  this  :  "Whatever  the  past  has  been,  if  you  can  only  say 
in  truth  that  you  love  Me  now,  it  is  all  right,  and  there  will  never  be 
another  word  said  about  your  falls  ! "  He  does,  in  effect,  what  wise 
fathers  and  mothers  do  with  their  wayward  children  after  some  burst  of 
naughtiness.  Their  question  is,  "Do  you  love  me,  then?"  And  if  the 
answer  to  that  is  swift  and  real,  then  no  more  need  be  said  about  the 
fault.  In  a  very  deep  sense,  though  not  in  the  deepest,  the  love  of 
the  penitent  effaces  the  sin.  That  which  truly  effaces  it  is  the  blood  of 
Jesus  Christ,  and  the  love  of  the  penitent  comes  after  and  not  before 
forgiveness,  which  is  the  Divine  act  that  blots  out  iniquity,  and  is  the 
consequence,  not  its  cause,  of  forgiveness.  But  when  a  penitent  denier 
comes  back  to  the  Master,  and  in  humble  faith  in  His  pardoning  mercy 
clasps  His  feet  and  washes  them  with  tears,  the  believing  love  is  all  that 
Christ  asks,  ere  He  reinstates  in  all  the  forfeited  privileges. 

49  « 


PETER'S   LOVE  A  TYPE   OF  OURS. 

He  saith  unto  htm  the  third  time,  Simon,  son  of  Jonas,  Lovesf  thou  Me  ? 
Peter  was  grieved  because  He  said  unto  him  the  third  titne,  Lovest  thou 
Me?  And  he  said  unto  Him,  Lord,  Thou  knowesi  all  things;  Thou 
knowest  that  I  love  Thee. — John  xxi.  17. 

_  -g     Notice  how  we  have  here,  not  only  that  figure  of  Christ 

e  ruary  .  ^^^^^  from  the  Cross,  with  all  the  appeal  that  His  sufferings 
for  us  ought  to  make  to  our  hearts,  smiting  upon  those  hearts  a  deeper 
consciousness  of  our  transgression,  but  we  have  also  the  figure,  full  of 
encouragement  and  of  teaching  for  us,  of  the  penitent  rejoicingly  acknow- 
ledging, notwithstanding  his  sin,  his  fervent  love  to  the  Master.  Do  not 
let  any  sense  of  unworthiness  make  you  hesitate  in  saying,  "I  love 
Thee  ! "  Do  not  try  to  find  out  whether  you  love  Christ  or  not  by 
inferences  from  your  conduct. 

You  do  not  do  that  about  your  love  to  one  another.  You  do  not 
say,  **  I  do  so-and-so  for  my  wife,  or  my  husband,  therefore  I  conclude 
that  I  love  him,  or  her."  You  start  with  the  feehng,  with  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  feehng,  with  the  glad  avowal  of  it ;  and  then,  to  the  best  of 
your  power,  you  shape  your  conduct  accordingly.  It  is  beginning  at  the 
wrong  end  to  begin  with  conduct,  and  to  look  to  it  for  the  answer  to  the 
questions,  "  Do  I  love  the  Lord  or  no?"  "Am  I  His,  or  am  I  not?" 
AH  of  us  have  to  bewail  inconsistencies,  but  any  Christian  man  or  woman 
who  seeks  to  answer  the  question  whether  they  love  Jesus  Christ  by 
inferences  drawn  from  conduct  is  condemning  himself  or  herself  to  a 
lifelong  burden  of  weariness,  and  to  a  religion  in  which,  because  there 
will  be  httle  joy,  there  will  be  little  power  and  freedom.  Let  us  not  be 
afraid,  after  the  example  of  this  man,  howsoever  dark  and  numerous  may 
have  been  our  fauUs,  let  us  not  be  afraid  to  profess  our  love  to  Him. 

The  consciousness  of  our  treachery  and  of  His  pardon  should  deepen 
our  love  to  Christ.  So  out  of  our  very  falls  we  may  rise  to  a  closer  and 
more  blessed  experience,  and  come  to  understand  for  ourselves  how  the 
publicans  and  harlots  m^y  go  into  the  Kingdom  before  the  Pharisees. 
The  only  source  from  which  a  true  love  to  Jesus  Christ,  warm  enough  to 
melt  the  ice  of  our  hearts,  and  flov/ing  with  a  powerful  enough  stream  to 
sweep  the  corruption  out  of  our  natures,  can  ever  flow  is  the  sense  of  our 
pardon  from  Him.  That  sense  will  deepen  as  the  consciousness  of  our 
manifold  transgressions  deepens.  So  the  more  we  feel  our  evil  and 
our  guilt,  the  more  let  us  cleave  to  that  great  Lord  that  has  given  Plimself 
for  us. 

It  was  but  a  shallow  conviction  of  sin  that  moved  in  Peter's  breast  at 
the  other  miraculous  draught  of  fishes,  when  he  said,  "Depart  from  me, 
LOT  I  am  a  sinful  man  ! "  He  has  learned  here  a  deeper  knowledge  of  his 
own  fault ;  he  knovv^s  better  how  bad  he  has  been  and  how  weak  he  still 
is;  and,  therefore,  instead  of  sa3ang  "Depart  !"  he  says,  "Let  me  cleave 
to  Thee  :  Thou  knowest  that  I  love  Thee." 

50 


THE  SERVICE  WITH  WHICH   LOVE   IS   HONOURED 

Jesus  saith  unto  him,  Feed  My  sheep. — John  xxi.  17. 

The  threefold  command  to  Peter,  first  of  all  to  care    for 
February  20. 

the  sustenance   of  the   least,  then   to  guide  and  direct  the 

more  advanced,  and  then  to  open  the  deepest  stores  of  God's  truth,  and 

impart  wisdom  as  well  as  guidance  to  all,   of  all  stages, — these  are  the 

charges  which  love  wins  for  its  honour  and  its  crown.     Of  course,  these 

injunctions   apply   primarily   to   the   Apostles,    and    subordinately  to  the 

teachers  of  the  Church  who  still  remain ;  but  they  also  apply  to  all  of  us, 

in  our  measure  and  degree.     The  lesson  is  just  this  :    the  spring  of  all 

service  to  men  is  love  to  Christ.     Historically  it  has  been  so. 

A  wider  and  a  wiser  philanthropy  has  sprung  within  the  limits  of  the 
Christian  Church  than  anywhere  else.  That  love  is  the  great  antagonist 
of  selfishness ;  that  love  imbues  men  with  Christ's  own  spirit ;  that  love 
leads  me  to  care  for  all  that  Christ  cares  for.  It  is  a  poor  affection  that 
does  not  cherish  the  property  of  an  absent  friend.  If  one  that  is  dear  to 
us,  going  away  to  the  other  side  of  the  world,  says  to  us,  "Will  you 
take  care  of  my  dog  till  I  come  back  again  ?  "  we  shall  care  for  it  if  we 
care  for  him.  And  when  He  says  to  us,  *'  Care  for  My  sheep,"  we  shall 
not  have  much  love  for  the  Shepherd  if  we  forget  the  flock. 

Therefore,  let  us  further  learn,  dear  friend,  that  all  so-called  Christian 
service  which  does  not  rest  on  the  basis  of  love  to  Jesus  Christ  is  profitless 
and  naught.  People  complain  that  after  all  the  preaching  and  Sunday- 
school  teaching  and  the  like,  so  few  results  should  be  found.  My  belief  is 
that  we  get  as  much  success  as  we  work  for,  and  that  if  some  power  could 
make  inaudible  every  word  of  our  preaching  that  had  been  spoken  from 
other  motives  than  love  to  Jesus  Christ,  many  an  eloquent  sermon  would 
have  little  left.  And  if  every  line  in  our  religious  books  which  had  been 
written  from  other  motives  were  expunged,  what  gaps  on  the  page  there 
would  be  !  How  many  names  would  fade  out  of  our  subscription  lists  ! 
How  many  of  your  Christian  activities  would  disappear  if  that  test  were 
applied  to  them  !  And  do  you  expect  God  to  bless  the  work  which  is  no 
Christian  service  at  all — unless  its  foundation  has  been  laid  in  love  to  the 
Master  ? 


THE   CROWN   OF   SERVICE. 

JV/ien  IfiGU  wast  yoiaig,  thou  girdedst  thyself,  and  walkedsi  whither  thou 
zvouldest :  but  iv hen  thou  shalt  be  old,  thou  shall  stretch  forth  thy  hands,  and 
another  shall  gtrd  thee,  and  carry  thee  whither  thou  wouldest  not.  This 
spake  He,  signifying  by  what  death  He  should  glorify  God. —  John  xxi.  l8 

F  b  21     The  enigmatical  words  draw  a  contrast  between  the  earlier 

*  days  of  independence,  of  self-will,  of  strength  which  is  its 
own  master  and  its  own  guide,  and  the  latter  days  when  some  unwelcome 
necessity  should  be  laid  upon  him,  and  the  constraint  of  an  external  hand 
should  lead  him  whither  he  would  not.  They  would  sound  obscure  to 
Peter  at  first.  The  whole  depth  and  meaning  of  them,  no  doubt,  was  not 
originally  disclosed  to  him,  or  to  his  brethren.  But  before  the  predicted 
end  came,  the  Apostle  had  learned  what  was  meant,  and  told  his  brethren 
that  he  knew  that  the  "putting  ofif  of  his  tabernacle  could  be  a  swift 
process,  even  as  the  Lord  Jesus  had  showed  him."  But  still,  though  they 
would  not  be  understood  in  their  full  depth,  these  words,  no  doubt,  would 
be  felt  to  cast  something  of  a  sombre  shadow  over  the  Apostolic  functions 
and  prospects  of  the  future.  And  so,  notice  how  all  that  shadow  is 
irradiated  with  sunlight  by  the  final  words,  "Follow  Me  !"  which,  though 
no  doubt  it  may  have  referred  to  a  literal  going  apart  with  Jesus  at  the 
moment  for  some  unknown  purpose,  yet  is  intended  to  gather  up  the 
injunction  of  service  and  the  prophecy  of  sufi'ering  into  one  great,  all- 
comprehensive  command.  Treading  in  Christ's  footsteps,  the  path  of 
toilsome  service  becomes  easy,  and  martyrdom  itself  a  trivial  pain. 

That  last  command  puts  the  crown  on  the  service  of  life  and  the  sutilering 
of  death.  He  who,  living  or  dying,  is  the  Lord's,  and  follows  Him,  can 
strenuously  do  and  calmly  die.  It  is  the  sum  of  all  duty,  the  one  all- 
sufhcient  command  which  absorbs  into  itself  all  law,  and  by  its  grand 
simplicity  rules  all  life. 

So  this  incident  yields  great  truths  for  us  all.  The  penitent  can  go  back 
to  his  Lord  and  avow  his  love.  Love  is  the  foundation  for  service.  We 
shall  serve  Him  in  the  measure  in  which  we  love  Him  ;  and  if  thus  drawn 
by  His  mighty  love,  and  conscious  of  our  own  manifold  weaknesses,  and 
smitten  with  the  sense  of  His  pardoning  mercy,  we  cleave  close  to  His 
footsteps,  life  will  be  easy,  service  will  be  blessed,  and  that  last  moment, 
which  to  others  is  as  if  some  bony  hand  was  stretched  out  to  hale  them 
away  whither  they  would  not  into  a  dark  land,  will  be  to  us  like  what  it  was 
to  the  Apostle  Peter  himself  in  tlie  hour  of  his  deliverance  from  the  prison. 
The  Lord  Jesus  Christ  Himself  will  come  to  us  and  say  to  us,  "Rise 
quickly  and  follow  Me  ! "  And  the  chains  will  drop  from  our  hands,  and 
we  shall  pass  through  the  iron  gate  that  opens  of  its  own  accord  ;  and  we 
shall  find  ourselves  in  the  city,  and  know  that  it  was  not  a  vision,  but  the 
reality  of  the  appearance  of  that  Lord  whom  we  love,  though  we  have 
denied  Him  so  often  and  served  Him  so  ill. 

52 


THE   CHRISTIAN'S   CHARACTER. 

jind  the  God  of  peace  Himself  sanctify  you  wholly  ;  and  may  your  spirit 
and  soul  and  body  be  prsserved  entire,  without  blame  at  the  coming  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ. — I  Thess.  v.  23. 

February  22     ^  PRIEST  must  be  pure.      And  Christ  washes  us  from  all 

stain,  and  clothes  us  in  priestly  garments  of  holiness,  which 

is  better  than  innocence  ;  for  His  blood  cleanses  from  all  sin,  Jind  the  spirit 

which   He   puts   within   all   who   have   faith   in  Him  makes   them   love 

righteousness  and  hate  iniquity. 

Thus  consecrated,  admitted  to  the  innermost  shrine,  appointed  to  offer 
the  richest  sacrifice  of  self,  and  clothed  in  purity,  they  wiio  were  captives 
of  sin  are  made  priests  of  the  Most  High  God. 

Their  double  dignity  is  but  part  of  their  assimilation  to  their  Lord. 
Every  one  that  is  perfect  shall  be  as  his  Master,  and  even  here  on  earth 
the  Christian  life  is  the  life  of  Christ  in  the  soul,  and  consists  in  growing 
likeness  to  Him.  Is  He  a  King  ?  So  are  we.  Is  He  a  Priest  ?  So, 
therefore,  are  we.  Is  He  a  Son  ?  So  are  we.  Is  He  the  Heir  ?  So  arc 
we.  Is  He  the  "Anointed?"  "He  that  in  Christ  hath  anointed  us  is 
God."  His  offices,  His  dignity,  His  character,  His  very  life  becomes  ours, 
if  we  are  His. 

This  royal  diadem  and  priestly  mitre  are  offered  to  us  all.  They  are  the 
prerogative  of  no  class.  Earthly  royalties  have  no  place  within  the  church 
of  the  redeemed,  where  all  are  brethren ;  and  not  even  an  apostle  has 
"dominion  over  "  his  brethren's  "faith."  There  is  no  place  in  it  for 
human  priests  who  offer  outward  sacrifices  and  claim  a  special  standing 
as  channels  of  sacramental  grace.  We  may  all  have  Christ's  hand  laid  on 
our  heads,  which  will  make  us  kings  and  priests  to  God  by  a  true  corona- 
tion and  ordination.  If  we  come  to  Him  in  penitence  and  faith,  as  knowing 
our  sins  and  looking  to  Him  to  loose  us  from  them  by  His  own  blood,  He 
will  set  us  on  high  to  reign  as  the  vassal  kings  of  Plis  great  empire,  and 
bring  us  near,  that  we  may  stand  ministering  before  the  Lord  the  sweet- 
savoured  offering  of  our  ransomed  selves.  Thus  we  shall  be  kings  and 
priests  here,  and  look  forward  to  dim  glories  yet  to  come,  when  we  shall 
reign  with  Him  as  kings,  and  as  His  servants  s'nall  do  priestly  service  in 
the  Eternal  Temple. 

The  one  question  for  us  all  is.  Do  our  eyes  fix  and  fasten  on  that  dear 
Lord,  and  is  it  the  description  of  our  whole  lives,  that  we  see  Him  and 
walk  with  Him  ?  Oh  !  if  so,  then  life  will  be  blessed,  and  death  itself  will 
be  but  as  "a  Httle  while,"  when  we  "shall  not  see  Him,"  and  then  we 
shall  open  our  eyes  and  behold  Him  close  at  hand,  whom  we  saw  from 
afar,  and  with  wandering  eyes,  amidst  the  mists  and  illusions  of  earth. 
To  see  Him  as  He  has  become  for  our  sakes  is  heaven  on  earth.  To  see 
Him  as  He  is  will  be  the  heaven  of  heaven ;  and  before  that  Face,  as  the 
sun  shining  in  his  strength,  all  sorrows,  difficulties,  and  mysteries  will  melt 
as  morning  mists. 


THE  CHRISTIAN'S   DIRECT  ACCESS   TO  GOD. 

Let  us  therefore  draw  near  with  boldness  unto  the  throne  of  grace,  that  we 
may  receive  tnercy,  and  may  find  grace  to  help  us  in  the  time  of  need. — 
Heb.  iv.  i6. 

„  ,  Christ,  the  great  High  Priest,  gives  those  whom  He  has 

Pebruary  23.         ,  . 

redeemed  priestly  access  to  God.     For  them  the  veil  of  the 

temple  is  rent,  and  the  hohest  place  is  patent  to  their  reverent  entrance. 
He  has  done  it  by  His  revelation  of  God,  whereby  He  has  brought  the 
whole  depth  and  tenderness  of  the  Father's  heart  close  to  our  hearts.  He 
has  done  it  by  His  death,  which  removes  all  obstacles  to  a  sinful  man's 
entrance  into  the  presence  of  that  awful  holiness,  and  brings  us  near 
through  His  blood.  He  does  it  by  putting  within  our  hearts  the  Spirit 
which  cries  Father,  the  new  life  which  sets  towards  God  as  water  rises  to 
the  level  of  its  source.  Thus  every  soul  of  man,  however  ignorant,  guilty, 
and  weak,  may  come  into  the  presence-chamber  of  God,  needing  no  priest, 
no  hand  to  lead,  no  introducer  to  be  present  at  the  interview.  Trusting  to 
Christ  our  Forerunner,  who  is  for  us  entered  within  the  veil,  we  may  come 
boldly  to  the  Throne,  which  we  shall  find,  when  so  approached,  a  throne  of 
grace,  and,  standing  close  beneath  it,  may  hold  direct  fellowship  with  the 
Father  and  with  the  Son.  We  may  dwell  in  the  secret  place  of  the  Most 
High,  and  depart  not  from  the  temple  day  nor  night,  if  we  will  go  with 
our  hands  in  Christ's  to  the  God  whom  Christ  reveals,  by  the  path  which 
Christ  has  opened  for  us. 

It  is  needful  that  every  priest  should  have  somewhat  to  offer.  And  this 
great  High  Priest  makes  it  possible  that  we  should  come,  not  empty- 
handed,  but  bringing  the  one  sacrifice  acceptable  to  God — the  offering  of 
hearts  set  on  fire  by  His  love.  Christ  has  offered  the  one  all-sufficient 
sacrifice  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world.  And  on  the  footing  of  that  sole 
and  perpetual  expiatory  sacrifice,  we,  weak  and  sinful  as  we  are,  can  draw 
near  with  our  thank-offerings,  the  only  sacrifices  which  we  need  or  can 
render.  Our  offerings  can  never  purge  away  sin  :  that  has  been  done 
once  for  all  by  the  "one  sacrifice  for  sins  for  ever."  And  whosoever  is 
thereby  loosed  from  his  sins  by  the  blood  of  Christ  is  thereby  made  himself 
a  priest,  to  offer  up  spiritual  sacrifices  of  joyful  thanksgiving.  The  sacrifices 
we  have  to  offer  are  ourselves — yielding  ourselves  up  in  the  blessed  self- 
surrender  of  love,  and  placing  ourselves  unreservedly  in  God's  hands,  to 
live  to  His  praise,  and  be  disposed  of  by  Ilis  supreme  will.  With  such 
sacrifices  God  is  well  pleased. 

54 


GOVERNMENT   OF  SELF. 

/  buffet  nty  body,  and  bring  it  into  bondage :  lest  by  any  means,  after 
that  I  have  preached  to  others,  I  myself  should  be  rejected. — I  Cor,  ix.  27. 

The  great  love  of  Christ  is  not  contented  with  simply 
'  breaking  the  bondage  of  the  slaves.  It  has  more  to  do  for 
them  before  it  reaches  its  end.  Emancipation  is  not  enough.  It  is  only 
a  step  in  the  process,  a  means  towards  a  more  wonderful  result.  He 
liberates  them  that  He  may  ennoble  them.  He  sets  them  free  from  the 
tyrants  who  held  them  captive  that  He  may  crown  them  with  a  crown 
of  glory.  He  brings  them  that  were  bound  out  of  the  prison-house,  and 
causes  them  to  have  rule  among  princes.  So  far-reaching  are  His  great 
purposes  that  to  loose  us  from  our  sins  seems  inadequate  to  fulfil  the 
counsel  of  His  love,  unless  it  be  followed  by  the  wonderful  bestowal  of 
kingly  dignity. 

And  what  does  that  imply?  Are  we  to  lose  ourselves  in  dim,  vague 
thoughts  of  some  future  millennial  reign  and  vulgar  outward  glories  ?  I 
think  not.  John  believed  — and  any  man  that  has  learned  the  Christian 
view  of  life  will  say  "Amen"  to  the  belief — that  every  man  who  has 
become  the  servant  of  Christ  is  the  king  and  lord  of  everything  else  ;  that 
to  submit  to  Him  is  to  rule  all  besides.  **He  hath  made  us  kings"  in 
the  act  of  submission  ;  and  on  the  head  that  bends  before  His  throne  in 
grateful  love  and  lowly  confidence,  He  stoops  to  lay  lightly  a  crown,  to 
raise  the  man  up  and  sa,y,   "Arise  and  reign!" 

Reign  over  what  ?  First  of  all,  over  the  only  kingdom  that  any  man 
really  has,  and  that  is  himself.  We  are  meant  to  be  monarchs  of  this 
tumultuous  and  rebellious  kingdom  within.  Vice  and  lust,  fancies,  tastes, 
whims,  purposes,  desires,  they  all  go  boiling  and  seething  in  our  natures. 
It  is  meant  that  we  should  keep  a  tight  hand  on  them,  and  be  lords  over 
them,  and  not  let  them  run  away  with  us,  and  carry  you  whither  they 
would,  as  so  many  of  us  do  in  our  hours  of  weakness.  In  our  inmost 
heart  and  conscience  we  know  that  we  are  meant  to  be  lords  of  ourselves. 
There  is  something  in  each  of  us  that  responds  to  the  noble  words — 
self-control,  self-denial ;  but  the  difficulty  is  how  to  carry  them  out,  how 
to  reign  and  rule  over  this  rebellious  kingdom  within  us.  Law  has  no 
power  to  get  itself  obeyed.  Conscience  shares  in  law's  weakness.  It  is  a 
voice,  authoritative  in  speech,  but  without  force  to  compel  attention.  We 
cannot  curb  ourselves.  There  must  be  a  power  without  to  reinforce  our 
wavering  wills  and  to  hold  down  our  rebellious  desires.  Christ  does  this 
for  us,  and  no  person  or  system  or  power  but  He  can  do  it  thoroughly  for 
any  man. 

55 


THE   CHRISTIAN'S   CONSECRATION. 

Who  then  offereih  willingly  to  consecrate  himself  this  day  unto  the  Lord} 
— I  Chron.  xxix.  5. 

All  things  serve  the  soul  that  serves  Christ.  All  are  yours 
'  if  ye  are  His  ;  and  the  great  old  words  of  that  wondrous 
psalm  which  sets  forth  God's  purpose  in  making  man  so  long  unaccom- 
plished, and,  as  it  would  seem  in  so  many  cases,  hopelessly  thwarted,  will 
be  fulfilled  in  us.  "  Thou  madest  him  to  have  dominion  over  the  works  of 
Thy  hands  ;  Thou  hast  put  all  things  under  his  feet."  All  things  are 
beneath  the  feet  of  him  who  humbly  lies  at  the  feet  of  Jesus  Christ, 
Obedience  is  sovereignty.  Christ's  brethren  are  every  one  the  children 
of  a  King.  He  who  looses  us  from  our  sins  makes  us  kings,  and  yet 
in  all  the  dominion  servants,  for  we  become  kings,  not  for  ourselves,  but 
"unto  God." 

A  priest  was  consecrated  by  the  anointing  oil  touching  hand  and  foot 
and  ear  ;  nor  was  he  set  apart  for  his  office  without  sacrifice.  Christ's 
priests  are  consecrated,  not  without  the  willing  surrender  of  their  whole 
being  to  His  service  ;  wherefore  they  are  called  upon  to  yield  or  present 
themselves  to  God,  and  their  members  as  instruments  of  righteousness. 
But  their  true  consecration  comes  from  the  touch  of  the  great  High 
Priest's  hand  laid  upon  their  spirits,  and  the  anointing  with  that  Spirit 
which  dwelt  in  Him  without  measure,  by  whom  He  offered  Himself  to 
God,  and  which  He  gives  to  all  that  trust  Him.  For  their  sakes  He  con- 
secrated Himself  that  they  also  might  be  consecrated.  That  Spirit  dwelling 
in  Him  made  Him  the  Messiah,  the  anointed  of  God,  Prophet,  Priest,  and 
King ;  and  that  Spirit  of  Christ  dwelling  in  His  servants  makes  them  His 
anointed,  His  prophets,  kings,  and  priests.  His  anointing  is  a  real,  not  a 
ceremonial,  setting  apart  to  God's  service,  the  impartation  of  a  real  inward 
fitness  to  be  a  holy  priesthood. 

So  long  as  we  are  joined  to  Christ,  we  partake  of  His  life,  and  our  lives 
become  music  and  praise.  The  electric  current  flows  from  Him  through 
all  souls  that  are  "in  Him,"  and  they  glow  with  fair  colours,  which  they 
owe  to  their  contact  with  Jesus.  Interrupt  the  communication,  and  all  is 
darkness.  We  have  as  much  of  God  as  we  can  hold.  All  Niagara  may 
roar  past  a  man's  door,  but  only  as  much  as  he  diverts  through  his  own 
sluice  will  drive  his  mill  or  quench  his  thirst.  That  grace  is  like  the 
figures  in  the  Eastern  tales,  that  will  creep  into  a  narrow  room  no  bigger 
than  a  nutshell,  or  will  tower  heaven  high.  Our  spirits  are  like  the  magic 
tent  whose  walls  expanded  or  contracted  at  the  owner's  wish  ;  we  maj 
enlarge  them  to  enclose  far  more  of  the  grace  than  we  have  ever  possessed. 

56 


THE  RULE  OF  CHRIST. 

My  yoke  is  easy,  and  My  burden  is  light — Matt.  xi.  30. 

If  you  want  to  rule  yourselves  let  Christ  rule  you.  Put  your 
'  trust  in  Him  ;  leave  yourself  in  His  hand  ;  lay  yourselves  at 
His  feet  ;  rest  upon  His  great  sacrifice  ;  look  to  Him  for  forgiveness  ;  and 
then  look  to  Him  for  marching  orders,  and  for  pure  hving,  and  for  every- 
thing else.  He  will  give  power  to  your  will,  however  feeble  it  was  before, 
and  susceptibility  to  your  conscience  that  it  never  had  when  it  was  case- 
hardened  by  your  love  of  evil,  and  you  will  be  able  to  subdue  the  passions 
which  would  sweep  you  away  and  would  laugh  at  all  other  control.  Put 
the  reins  into  His  hands,  and  He  will  bridle  and  tame  your  wild  desires. 
Submit  to  Him,  and  He  will  make  you  "lord  of  yourself,  though  not  of 
lands  " — man's  noblest  kingship. 

We  are  like  some  of  those  little  Rajahs  whose  states  adjoin  our  British 
possessions,  who  have  trouble  and  difficulty  with  revolted  subjects,  and  fall 
back  upon  the  great  neighbouring  power,  saying:  "Come  and  help  me ; 
subdue  my  people  for  me,  and  I  will  put  the  territory  into  your  hands." 
Go  to  Christ  and  say:  "Lord  !  they  have  rebelled  against  me  !  These 
passions,  these  lusts,  these  follies,  these  weaknesses,  these  sinful  habits  of 
mine,  they  have  rebelled  against  me  !  What  am  I  to  do  with  them  ?  Do 
Thou  come  and  bring  peace  into  the  land,  and  Thine  shall  be  the  authority." 
And  He  will  come  and  loose  you  from  your  sins,  and  make  you  kings. 

And  there  is  another  realm  over  which  we  may  rule ;  and  that  is,  this 
bewitching  and  bewildering  world  of  time  and  sense,  with  its  phantas- 
magoria and  its  illusions  and  its  lies,  that  draw  us  away  from  the  real  life 
and  truth  and  blessedness.  Do  not  let  the  v/orld  master  you  !  It  will, 
unless  you  have  put  yourself  under  Christ's  control.  He  will  make  you 
king  over  all  outward  things,  by  enabling  you  to  despise  them  in  comparison 
with  the  sweetness  which  you  find  in  Him,  and  so  to  get  the  highest  good 
out  of  them.  He  will  make  you  their  lord  by  helping  you  to  use  all  the 
things  seen  and  temporal  as  means  to  reach  a  fuller  possession  of  the  things 
unseen  and  eternal.  Their  noblest  use  is  to  be  the  ladder  by  which  we 
climb  to  reach  the  treasures  which  are  above.  They  are  meant  to  be 
symbols  of  the  eternal,  like  painted  windows  through  which  our  eye  may 
travel  to  the  light  beyond,  which  gives  them  all  their  brilliancy.  He  rules 
the  waves  who,  with  a  strong  hand  on  the  tiller,  makes  the  currents  serve 
to  bear  his  barque  to  the  harbour.  And  he  rules  outward  things  who 
bends  and  coerces  them  to  be  the  servants  of  his  spirit  in  its  highest 
aspirations,  and  so  turns  them  to  their  noblest  use. 

57 


THE  ROYALTY  OF  THE  REDEEMED. 

He  made  us  to  be  a  kingdom^  to  be  kings  and  priests  unto  His  God  and 
Father. — Rev.  i.  6. 

*•  He  loveth  us " ;  that  is  the  eternal  act  that  lies  at  the 
^^  *  foundation  of  the  Universe.  *'  He  hath  loosed  us  from  our 
sins  in  His  own  blood  "  j  that  is  the  great  fact  in  Time,  done  once  and 
needing  no  repetition,  and  capable  of  no  repetition,  into  which  all  the 
fulness  and  sweetness  and  pathos  and  power  of  that  infinite  love  has  been 
gathered  and  condensed. 

And  then  there  follows,  in  the  words  ot  this  text,  the  ultimate  conse- 
quence and  lofty  development,  at  once,  of  that  eternal,  timeless  love,  and 
of  that  redeeming  act  which  "hath  loosed  us  from  our  sins,"  and,  yet 
more  wonderful,  "  hath  made  us  kings  and  priests  to  God." 

Every  Christian  man  is  a  king  and  priest.  Those  who  have  been  loosed 
from  their  sins  by  the  blood  of  Christ  have  thereby  become  members  of  that 
Kingdom  of  God  which  consists  of  all  whose  wills  bow  to  His  for  His  dear 
love's  sake.  But,  inasmuch  as  such  submission  to  His  sway  gives  authority 
and  mastership  over  all  beside,  that  kingdom  is  a  kingdom  all  whose  sub- 
jects are  royal ;  and  in  this  sense,  too,  Christ  is  King  of  kings.  It  would 
appear  that  the  phrase  in  the  old  law  was  so  used  to  express  the  double 
idea  of  a  Kingdom  of  Kings,  in  other  places  of  the  New  Testament,  and 
probably,  therefore,  here.  For  instance,  we  have  it  quoted  again  in  this 
book  (verse  lo),  with  a  clause  added  which  distinctly  shows  that  there 
"kingdom"  is,  in  the  writer's  mind,  equivalent  to  "kings" — namely, 
"and  they  shall  reign  (or  "they  reign")  upon  the  earth."  Again,  Peter 
gives  it  in  the  form  of  "a  royal  priesthood,"  where  the  original  force  of 
"  kingdom "  has  disappeared  altogether,  and  the  idea  of  the  royalty  of 
believers  alone  remains.  It  seems  probable,  then,  that  in  the  words  before 
us,  we  are  to  see  the  same  idea  predominant,  though  no  doubt  the  other 
must  also  be  taken  into  account. 

It  is  also  to  be  remembered  that  both  these  high  titles  originally  and 
properly  belong  to  Christ,  and  are  bestowed  on  believers  by  deviation  or 
transference  from  Him.  The  wholesome  usage  of  ancient  times  forbade 
the  blending  of  these  two  offices  in  one  person,  but  He  is  a  priest  after  the 
order  of  Melchizedek.  He  wears  the  mitre  and  the  crown,  and,  as  the 
prophet  Zechariah  foretold,  "  shall  be  a  priest  upon  His  throne  "  ;  what 
He  is.  He,  in  His  love,  raises  all  His  servants  to  be. 


"GIRD   UP  YOUR   LOINS." 

Let  your  loins  be  girded  about,  and  your  lamps  burning;  and  be  ye 
yourselves  like  unto  men  looking  for  their  Lord. — Luke  xii.  35. 

February  28.  '^^'^^  ^^^  foolish  virgins  did  not  go  awa}''  into  any  forbidden 
''  '  paths.  No  positive  evil  is  alleged  against  them.  They  were 
simply  asleep.  The  other  five  were  asleep,  too.  I  do  not  need  to  enter, 
here  and  now,  into  the  whole  interpretation  of  the  parable,  or  there  might 
be  much  to  say  about  the  difference  between  these  two  kinds  of  sleep.  But 
what  I  wish  to  notice  is  that  there  was  nothing  except  negligence  darkening 
into  drowsiness,  which  caused  the  dying  out  of  the  light.  This  process  of 
gradual  extinction  may  be  going  on,  and  may  have  been  going  on,  for  a 
long  while,  and  the  people  that  carried  the  lamp  be  quite  unaware  of  it. 

How  could  a  sleeping  woman  know  whether  her  lamp  was  burning  or 
not  ?  How  can  a  drowsy  Christian  tell  whether  his  spiritual  life  is  bright 
or  no  ?  To  be  unconscious  of  our  approximation  to  this  condition  is,  I  am 
afraid,  one  of  the  surest  signs  that  we  are  in  it.  I  suppose  that  a  paralysed 
limb  is  quite  comfortable.  At  any  rate,  paralysis  of  the  spirit  may  be  going 
on  without  our  knowing  anything  about  it. 

So  do  not  put  these  poor  words  of  mine  away  from  you,  and  say,  *'  Oh  ! 
they  do  not  apply  to  me,"  I  am  quite  sure  that  the  people  to  whom  they 
do  apply  will  be  the  last  people  to  take  them  to  themselves.  And  while  I 
quite  believe,  thank  God  !  that  there  are  many  of  us  who  may  feel  and  know 
that  our  lamps  are  not  going  out,  sure  I  am  that  there  are  some  of  us  whom 
ever^'body  but  themselves  knows  to  be  carrying  a  lamp  that  is  so  far  gone 
out  that  it  is  smoking  and  stinking  in  the  eyes  and  noses  of  the  people  that 
stand  by. 

Be  sure  that  nobody  was  more  surprised  than  were  the  five  foolish 
women  when  they  opened  their  witless,  sleepy  eyes,  and  saw  the  state 
of  things. 

There  is  only  one  road,  with  well-marked  stages,  by  which  a  back- 
sliding or  apostate  Christian  can  return  to  his  Master.  And  that  road  has 
three  halting-places  upon  it,  through  which  our  heart  must  pass  if  it  have 
wandered  from  its  early  faith  and  falsified  its  first  professions.  The  first 
of  them  is  the  consciousness  of  the  fall,  the  second  is  the  resort  to  the 
Master  for  forgiveness,  and  the  last  is  the  deepened  consecration  to  Him. 
When  the  patriarch  Abraham,  in  a  momentary  lapse  from  faith  to  sense, 
thought  himself  compelled  to  leave  the  land  to  which  God  had  sent  him, 
because  a  famine  threatened ;  when  he  came  back  from  Egypt,  as  the 
narrative  tells  us  with  deep  significance,  he  went  to  the  "place  where  he 
had  pitched  his  tent  at  the  beginning  ;  to  the  altar  which  he  had  reared  at 
the  first."  Yes  !  my  friend  ;  we  must  begin  over  again,  tread  all  the  old 
path,  enter  by  the  old  wicket-gate,  once  more  take  the  place  of  the  penitent, 
once  more  make  acquaintance  with  the  pardoning  Christ,  once  more  devote 
ourselves  in  renewed  consecration  to  His  service.  No  man  that  wanders 
into  the  wilderness  but  comes  back  by  the  King's  highway,  if  He  comes 
back  at  all. 

59 


LOST   BY   DOING   NOTHING. 
The  foolish  said  unto  the  wise,  Give  us  of  your  oil. — Matt.  xxv.  8. 

_  .  29     ^^  ^^'^  "°^  °^  ^"^  purpose  that  the  foolish  five  took  no  oil 

e  ruary  .  ^.^^^  them.  They  merely  neglected  to  do  so,  not  having  the 
wit  to  look  ahead  and  provide  against  the  contingency  of  a  long  time  of 
waiting  for  the  bridegroom.  Their  negligence  was  the  result,  not  of 
deliberate  wish  to  let  their  lights  go  out,  but  of  their  heedlessness  ;  and 
because  of  that  negligence  they  earned  the  name  of  "foolish."  If  we  do 
not  look  forward,  and  prepare  for  possible  drains  upon  our  powers,  we  shall 
deserve  the  same  adjective.  If  we  do  not  lay  in  stores  for  future  use,  we 
may  be  sent  to  school  to  the  harvesting  ant  and  the  bee.  That  lesson 
applies  to  all  departments  of  hfe  ;  but  it  is  eminently  applicable  to  spiritual 
life,  which  is  sustained  only  by  communications  from  the  Spirit  of  God. 
For  these  communications  will  be  imperceptibly  lessened,  and  may  be 
altogether  intercepted,  unless  diligent  attention  is  given  to  keep  open  the 
channels  by  which  they  enter  the  spirit.  If  the  pipes  are  not  looked  to, 
they  will  be  choked  by  masses  of  matted  trifles,  through  which  the  "  rivers 
of  living  water,"  which  Christ  took  as  a  symbol  of  the  Spirit's  influences, 
cannot  force  a  way.  The  thing  that  makes  shipwreck  of  the  faith  of  most 
professing  Christians  that  do  come  to  grief  is  no  positive  wickedness,  no 
conduct  which  would  be  branded  as  sin  by  the  Christian  conscience,  or  even 
by  ordinary  people,  but  simply  torpor.  If  the  water  in  a  pond  is  never 
stirred,  it  is  sure  to  stagnate,  and  green  scum  to  spread  over  it,  and  a  foul 
smell  to  rise  from  it.  A  Christian  man  has  only  to  do  what  I  am  afraid  a 
good  many  of  us  are  in  great  danger  of  doing — that  is,  nothing — in  order 
to  ensure  that  his  lamp  shall  go  out.  Do  you  try  to  keep  yours  alight  ? 
There  is  only  one  way  to  do  it — that  is,  to  go  to  Christ  and  get  Him  to 
pour  His  sweetness  and  His  power  into  our  open  hearts. 

The  punishment  for  shirking  work  is  to  be  denied  work.  Just  as  the 
converse  is  true,  that  in  God's  administration  of  the  world  and  of  His 
Church,  the  reward  for  faithful  work  is  to  get  more  to  do,  and  the  filling  a 
narrow  sphere  is  the  sure  way  to  have  a  larger  sphere  to  fill.  So,  if  a  man 
abandons  plain  duties,  then  he  will  get  no  work  to  do.  And  that  is  why  so 
many  Christian  men  and  women  are  idle  in  this  world,  and  stand  in  the 
market-place,  with  a  certain  degree  of  truth,  saying,  "No  man  hath  hired 
us."  No  !  because  so  often  in  the  past  tasks  have  been  presented  to  you, 
forced  upon  you,  almost  pressed  into  your  unwilling  hands,  that  you  have 
refused  to  take  ;  and  you  are  not  going  to  get  any  more.  You  have  been 
asked  to  work, — I  speak  now  to  professing  Christians, — duties  have  been 
pressed  upon  you,  fields  of  service  have  opened  plr.inly  before  you,  and  you 
have  not  had  the  heart  to  go  into  them.  And  so  you  stand  idle  all  the  clay 
now,  and  the  work  goes  to  other  people  that  can  do  it ;  and  God  honours 
ihem,  and  passes  you  by. 

60 


HE   WILL  NEVER   LEAVE   US. 

Himself  hath  said_  I  will  in  no  wise  fail  thee,  neither  will  I  in  any  wise 
forsake  thee. — Heb.  xiii.  5. 

March  1  ^^^^^  ^^^  of  the  old  patriarchs  had  committed  a  great  sin,  and 
had  unbelievingly  twitched  his  hand  out  of  God's  hand,  and 
gone  away  down  into  Egypt  to  help  himself,  instead  of  trusting  to  God, 
he  was  commanded,  on  his  return  to  Palestine,  to  go  to  the  place  where  he 
dwelt  at  the  first,  and  begin  again  at  that  point  where  he  began  when 
he  first  entered  the  land  ;  which,  being  translated,  is  just  this :  the  only 
way  to  keep  our  spirits  vital  and  quick  is  by  having  recourse,  again  and 
again,  to  the  same  power  which  first  imparted  life  to  them,  and  that  is 
done  by  the  same  means,  the  means  of  simple  reliance  upon  Christ,  in  the 
consciousness  of  our  own  deep  need,  and  believingly  waiting  upon  him  for 
the  repeated  communication  of  the  gifts  which  we,  alas  !  have  so  often 
misimproved.  Negligence  is  enough  to  slay.  Doing  nothing  is  the  sure 
way  to  quench  the  Holy  Spirit. 

And,  on  the  other  hand,  keeping  close  to  Him  is  the  sure  way  to 
secure  that  He  will  never  leave  us.  You  can  choke  a  lamp  with  oil,  but 
you  cannot  have  in  your  hearts  too  much  of  that  Divine  grace.  And  you 
get  all  that  you  need  if  you  choose  to  go  and  ask  it  from  him.  Remember 
the  old  story  about  Elisha  and  the  poor  woman.  The  cruse  of  oil  began 
to  run.  She  brought  all  the  vessels  that  she  could  rake  together,  big  and 
little,  pots  and  cups,  of  all  shapes  and  sizes,  and  set  them,  one  after  the 
other,  under  the  jet  of  oil.  They  were  all  filled  ;  and  when  she  brought 
no  more  vessels,  the  oil  stayed.  If  you  do  not  take  your  empty  hearts  to 
God,  and  say,  "  Here,  Lord  !  fill  this  cup,  too  ;  poor  as  it  is,  fill  it  with 
thine  own  gracious  influences,"  be  very  sure  that  no  such  influences  will 
come  to  you.  But  if  you  do  go,  be  as  sure  of  this,  that  so  long  as  you 
hold  out  your  emptiness  to  Him,  He  will  flood  it  with  His  fulness,  and  the 
light  that  seemed  to  be  sputtering  to  its  death  will  flame  up  again.  He 
will  not  quench  the  smoking  wick,  if  only  we  carry  it  to  Him  ;  but  as  the 
priests  in  the  Temple  walked  all  through  the  night  to  trim  the  golden 
lamps,  so  He  who  walks  amidst  the  seven  candlesticks  will  see  to  each. 

"  Looking  ^unto  Jesus"  is  the  secret  triumph  over  the  fascinations  of 
the  world.  And  if  we  habitually  so  look,  then  the  sweetness  that  we  shall 
experience  will  destroy  all  the  seducing  power  of  lesser  and  earthly  sweet- 
ness, and  the  blessing,  the  light  of  the  sun  will  dim  and  all  but  extinguish 
the  deceitful  gleams  that  tempt  us  into  the  swamps  where  we  shall  be 
drowned.  Turn  away,  then,  from  these  things ;  cleave  to  Jesus  Christ ; 
and  though  in  ourselves  we  may  be  as  weak  as  a  humming-bird  before  a 
snake,  or  a  rabbit  before  a  tiger.  He  will  give  us  strength,  and  the  light  of 
His  face  shining  down  upon  us  will  fix  our  eyes  and  make  us  insensible  to 
the  fascinations  of  the  sorcerers.  So  we  shall  not  need  to  dread  the 
question,  "Who  hath  bewitched  you?"  but  ourselves  challenge  the  utmost 
might  of  the  fascinators  with  the  triumphant  question,  "Who  shall  separate 
us  from  the  love  of  Christ  ?  " 

Help  us,  O  Lord  !  we  beseech  Thee,  to  live  near  Thee.  Turn  away  our 
eyes  from  beholding  vanity,  and  enable  us  to  set  the  Lord  always  before  us, 
that  we  be  not  moved. 

6l 


THE   GRADUAL  EXTINCTION   OF   GOD'S   LIGHT   IN 

THE   SOUL. 

Our  lamps  are  going  out. — Matt.  xxv.  8. 

-.     ,   2     All  spiritual  emotions,  and  vitality,  like  every  other  kind  of 

"  '  emotion  and  vitality,  die  unless  nourished.  Let  no  theological 
difficulties  about  "the  final  perseverance  of  the  saints,"  or  "the  inde- 
feasibleness  of  grace,"  and  the  impossibility  of  slaying  the  Divine  life  that 
has  once  been  given  to  a  man,  come  in  the  way  of  letting  this  parable 
have  its  full,  solemn  weight.  These  foolish  virgins  had  oil  and  had  hght ; 
the  oil  gave  out  by  their  fault,  and  so  the  light  went  out,  and  they  were 
startled,  when  they  awoke  from  their  slumber,  to  see  how,  instead  of 
brilhant  flame,  there  was  smoking  wick. 

Let  us  take  the  lesson.  There  is  nothing  in  our  religious  emotions 
which  has  any  guarantee  of  perpetuity  in  it,  except  upon  certain  conditions. 
We  may  live,  and  our  life  may  ebb.  We  may  trust,  and  our  trust  may 
tremble  into  unbelief  We  may  obey,  and  our  obedience  may  be  broken 
by  the  mutinous  risings  of  self-will.  We  may  walk  in  the  paths  of 
righteousness,  and  our  feet  may  falter  and  turn  aside.  There  is  certainty 
of  the  dying  out  of  all  communicated  life,  unless  the  channel  of  com- 
munication with  the  life  from  which  it  was  first  kindled  be  kept  constantly 
clear.  The  lamp  may  be  "a  burning  and  a  shining  light,"  or,  more 
accurately  translating  the  phrase  of  our  Lord,  "a  light  kindled  and" 
(therefore)  "shining,"  but  it  will  only  be  light  "for  a  season,"  unless  it  is 
fed  from  that  from  which  it  was  first  set  alight — and  that  is,  from  God 
Himself 

"  Oar  lamps  are  going  out."  A  slow  process  that !  The  flame  does 
not  all  die  into  darkness  in  a  minute.  There  are  stages  in  the  process. 
The  white  portion  of  the  flame  becomes  smaller  and  the  blue  part  extends  ; 
then  the  flame  flickers,  and  finally  shudders  itself,  as  it  were,  oft  the  wick ; 
then  nothing  remains  but  a  charred  red  line  along  the  top  ;  then  that  line 
breaks  up  into  little  points,  and  one  after  another  these  twinkle  out,  and 
then  all  is  black,  and  the  lamp  is  gone  out.  And  so,  slowly,  like  the 
ebbing  away  of  the  tide,  like  the  reluctant  long-protracted  dying  of  summer 
days,  like  the  dropping  of  the  blood  from  some  fatal  wound,  by  degrees 
the  process  of  extinction  creeps,  creeps,  creeps  on,  and  the  lamp  that 
was  going  is  finally  gone  out. 

The  infinite  mercy  of  God  is  not  mere  weak  indulgence,  which  so  deals 
with  a  man's  failures  and  sins  as  to  convey  the  impression  that  these  are  of 
no  moment  whatsoever.  And  the  severity  which  said,  "No!  such  work 
is  not  fit  for  such  hands  until  the  heart  has  been  '  broken  and  healed,' "  is 
of  a  piece  with  the  severity  which  is  love.  "Thou  wast  a  God  that  for- 
gavest  them,  and  didst  visit  them  for  their  inventions."  Let  us  learn  the 
difference  between  a  weak  charity  which  loves  too  foolishly,  and  therefore 
too  selfislily,  to  let  a  man  inherit  the  fruit  of  his  doings,  and  the  large  mercy 
which  knows  how  to  take  the  bitterness  out  of  the  chastisement,  and  yet 
knows  how  to  chastise. 

62 


BEARING   FRUIT. 

As  for  Me,  I  am  like  a  green  olive  tree  in  the  house  of  God, — Psalm  Hi.  8. 

The  God-bedewed  soul,  beautiful,  pure,  stronc:,  will  bear 
fruit.  *'  His  beauty  shall  be  as  the  oHve  tree."  Anybody  that 
has  ever  seen  a  grove  of  olives  knows  that  their  beauty  is  not  such  as 
strikes  the  eye.  If  it  was  not  for  the  blue  sky  overhead,  that  rays  down 
glorifying  light,  they  would  not  be  much  to  look  at  or  talk  about.  The 
tree  has  a  gnarled,  grotesque  trunk,  which  divides  into  insignificant  branches, 
bearing  leaves  mean  in  shape,  harsh  in  texture,  with  a  silvery  underside. 
It  gives  but  a  quivering  shade,  and  has  no  massiveness,  nor  sympathy. 
Ay  !  but  there  are  olives  on  the  branches.  And  so  the  beauty  of  the 
humble  tree  is  in  what  it  grows  for  man's  good.  After  all,  it  is  the 
outcome  in  fruitfulness  which  is  the  main  thing  about  us.  God's  meaning, 
in  all  his  gifts  of  dew,  and  beauty,  and  purity,  and  strength,  is  that  we 
should  be  of  some  use  in  the  world. 

The  olive  is  crushed  into  oil,  and  the  oil  is  used  for  smoothing  and 
suppling  joints  and  flesh,  for  nourishing  and  sustaining  the  body  as  food, 
for  illuminating  darkness  as  oil  in  the  lamp.  And  these  three  things  are 
the  three  things  for  which  we  Christian  people  have  received  all  our  dew, 
and  all  our  beauty,  and  all  our  strength — that  we  may  give  other  people 
light,  that  we  may  be  the  means  of  conveying  to  other  people  nourishment, 
that  we  may  move  gently  in  the  world  as  lubricating,  sweetening,  soothing 
influences,  and  not  irritating  and  provoking,  and  leading  to  strife  and 
alienation.  The  question,  after  all,  is,  does  anybody  gather  fruit  off  tis,  and 
would  anybody  call  us  *' trees  of  righteousness,  the  planting  of  the  Lord, 
that  He  may  be  glorified?"  May  we  all  open  our  hearts  for  the  dew 
from  heaven,  and  then  use  it  to  produce  in  ourselves  beauty,  purity, 
strength,  and  fruitfulness ! 

Union  with  Christ  is  the  condition  of  all  fruitfulness.  There  may  be 
plenty  of  activity  and  yet  barrenness.  Works  are  not  fruit.  We  can  bring 
forth  a  great  deal  *'  of  ourselves,"  and  because  it  is  of  ourselves  it  is  naught. 
Fruit  is  possible  only  on  condition  of  union  with  Him.  He  is  the  productive 
glory  of  it  all.  We  are  not  to  be  content  with  a  little  fruit — a  poor 
shrivelled  bunch  of  grapes  that  are  more  like  marbles  than  grapes,  here  and 
there,  upon  the  half-nourished  stem.  The  abiding  in  Him  will  produce  a 
character  rich  in  manifold  graces.  "A  little  fruit"  is  not  contemplated  by 
Christ  at  all.  God  forbid  that  I  should  say  that  there  is  no  possibility  of 
union  with  Christ  and  a  little  fruit !  A  little  union  will  have  a  little  fruit. 
Why  is  it  that  the  average  Christian  man  of  this  generation  bears  only  a 
berry  or  two  here  and  there,  like  such  as  are  left  upon  the  vines  after  the 
vintage,  when  the  promise  is  that  if  he  will  abide  in  Christ,  he  will  bear 
much  fruit  ? 

63 


ALL  STRENGTH    IN   CHRIST. 

As  therefore  ye  received  Christ  Jesus  the  Lord,  so  walk  in  Him^  rooted 
and  btiilded  up  in  Him,  and  stablished  in  your  faith. — Col.  ii.  6. 

Speak  we   of  strength?    Christ   is  the  type  of  strength.     Of 
BT&rch  4« 

beauty  ?     He  is  the  perfection  of  beauty.     And  it  is  only  as  we 

keep  close  to  Him  that  our  Hves  will  be  all  fair  with  the  reflected  loveliness 

of  His,  and  strong  with  the  communicated  power  of  His  grace — "  strong  in 

the  Lord,  and  in  the  power  of  His  might."     If  we  are  to  set  forth  anything, 

in  our  daily  lives,  of  this  strength,  remember  our  lives  must  be  rooted  in, 

as  well  as  bedewed  by,  God.     Hosea's  emblems,  beautiful  and  instructive 

as  they  are,   do  not  reach  to  the  deep  truth  set  forth  in  still  holier  and 

sweeter  words.     **  I  am  the  Vine,  ye  are  branches."     The  union  of  Christ 

and  His  people  is  closer  than  that  between  dew  and  plant.     Our  growth 

results  from  the  communication  of  His  own  life  to  us.     Therefore  is  the 

command  stringent  and  obedience  to  it  blessed,  "Abide  in  Me — for  apart 

from  Me,  ye  can  do" — and  are — "  nothing." 

Let  us  remember  that  the  loftier  the  top  of  the  tree  the  wider  the 
spread  of  its  sheaves  of  dark  foliage  ;  if  it  is  steadfastly  to  stand,  immovable 
by  the  loud  winds  when  they  call,  the  deeper  must  its  roots  strike  into  the 
firm  earth.  If  your  life  is  to  be  a  fair  temple-palace,  worthy  of  God's 
dwelling  in,  if  it  is  to  be  impregnable  to  assault,  there  must  be  quite  as 
much  masonry  undergi'ound  as  above,  as  is  the  case  in  great  old  buildings 
and  palaces.  And  such  a  life  must  be  a  life  "hid  with  Christ  in  God." 
Then  it  will  be  strong.  When  we  strike  our  roots  deep  into  Him,  our 
branch  also  shall  not  wither,  and  our  leaf  shall  be  green,  and  all  that  we 
do  shall  prosper.  The  wicked  are  not  so.  They  are  like  chaff— rootless, 
fruitless,  hfeless,  which  the  wind  driveth  away. 

"Apart  from  Me  ye  can  do  nothing."  77/^^5  is  the  condemnation  of 
all  the  busy  life  of  men  which  is  not  lived  in  union  with  Jesus  Christ.  It  is 
a  long  row  of  figures  which,  like  some  other  long  rows  of  figures  added  up, 
amount  just  to  ze7-o.  "Without  Me— nothing."  All  your  busy  life,  when 
you  come  to  sum  it  up,  is  made  up  oi plus  and  minus  quantities,  which  pre- 
cisely balance  each  other ;  and  the  net  result,  unless  you  are  in  Christ,  is  just 
nothing ;  and  on  your  gravestones  the  only  right  epitaph  is  a  great  round 
cypher — "  He  did  not  do  anything.  There  is  nothing  left  of  his  toil ;  the 
whole  thing  has  evaporated  and  disappeared."  That  is  life  apart  from  Jesus 
Christ.  Separate  from  Christ  the  individual  shrivels,  and  the  possibilities 
of  fair  buds  wither  and  set  into  no  fruit.  x\.nd  no  man  is  the  man  ho  might 
have  been  unless  he  holds  by  Jesus  Christ  and  lets  His  life  come  into  lum. 

64 


STRENGTH   OF  CHARACTER. 

And  cast  forth  his  roots  as  Lebanon. — Hosea  xiv.  5. 

Hi  h  5  "^  GoD-BEDEWED  soul  that  has  been  made  fair  and  pure,  by 
communion  with  God,  ought  also  to  be  strong.  He  shall  cast 
forth  his  roots  "  like  Lebanon."  I  take  it  that  simile  does  not  refer  to  the 
roots  of  that  giant  range  that  slope  away  do\vn  under  the  depths  of  the 
Mediterranean.  That  is  a  beautiful  emblem,  but  it  is  not  in  line  with 
the  other  images  in  the  context.  As  these  are  all  dependent  on  the 
promise  of  the  dew,  and  represent  different  phases  of  the  results  of  its 
fulfilment,  it  is  natural  to  expect  thus  much  uniformity  in  their  variety, 
that  they  shall  all  be  drawn  from  plant  life.  If  so,  we  must  suppose  a 
condensed  metaphor  here,  and  take  "  Lebanon"  to  mean  the  forests  which 
another  prophet  calls  "the  glory  of  Lebanon."  The  characteristic  tree  in 
these,  as  we  all  know,  was  the  cedar. 

It  is  named  in  Hebrew  by  a  word  which  is  connected  with  that  for 
**  strength."  It  stands  as  the  very  type  and  emblem  of  stabihty  and 
vigour.  Think  of  its  firm  roots  by  which  it  is  anchored  deep  in  the  soil ; 
think  of  the  shelves  of  massive  dark  foliage ;  think  of  its  unchanged 
steadfastness  in  storm  ;  think  of  its  towering  height ;  and  thus  arriving  at 
the  meaning  of  the  emblem,  let  us  translate  it  into  practice  in  our  own 
lives.  *' He  shall  cast  forth  his  roots  as  Lebanon."  Beauty?  Yes! 
Purity  ?  Yes  !  And  braided  in  with  them,  if  I  may  so  say,  the  strength 
which  can  say  "No!"  which  can  resist,  which  can  persist,  which  can 
overcome;  power  drawn  from  communion  with  God.  "Strength  and 
beauty"  should  blend  in  the  worshippers,  as  they  do  in  the  "sanctuary" 
in  God  Himself.  There  is  nothing  admirable  in  mere  force  ;  there  is  often 
something  sickly  and  feeble,  and  therefore  contemptible,  in  mere  beauty. 
Many  of  us  will  cultivate  the  complacent  and  the  amiable  sides  of  the 
Christian  life,  and  be  wanting  in  the  manly  "  thews  that  throws  the  world," 
and  can  fight  to  the  death.  But  we  have  to  try  and  bring  these  two 
excellences  of  character  together,  and  it  needs  an  immense  deal  of  grace 
and  wisdom  and  imitation  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  a  close  clasp  of  His  hand, 
to  enable  us  to  do  that. 

Many  a  stately  elm  that  seems  full  of  vigorous  life,  for  all  its  spreading 
boughs  and  clouds  of  dancing  leaves,  is  hollow  at  the  heart,  and  when  the 
storm  comes  goes  down  with  a  crash,  and  men  wonder,  as  they  look  at  the 
ruin,  how  such  a  mere  shell  of  life,  with  a  core  of  corruption,  could  stand 
so  long.  It  rotted  within,  and  fell  at  last  because  its  roots  did  not  go  deep 
down  to  the  rich  soil,  where  they  would  have  found  nourishment,  but  ran 
along  near  the  surface,  among  gravel  and  stones.  If  we  would  stand  firm, 
be  sound  within,  and  bring  forth  much  fruit,  we  must  strike  our  roots  deep 
in  Him  who  is  the  anchorage  of  our  souls  and  the  nourisher  of  all  our 
being. 

65 


THE  PURITY  AND   BEAUTY  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN   LIFE. 

He  shall  blossom  as  the  lify,  .  .  .  and  his  beauty  shall  be  as  the  olive  tree, 
and  his  smell  as  Lebanon, — Rosea  xiv.  5»  6. 

A  SOUL  bedewed  by  God  will  spring  into  purity  and  beauty. 
Horch  6t 

Ugly  Christianity  is  not  Christ's  Christianity.     Some  of  us  older 

people   remember  that  it  used  to  be  a  favourite  phrase  to  describe  un- 
attractive saints,  that  they  had  *' grace  grafted  on  a  crab  stick."     There 
are  a  great  many  Christian  people  whom  one  would  compare  to  any  other 
plant  rather  than  a  lily.     Thorns  and  thistles  and  briars  are  a  good  deal 
more  like  what  some  of  them  appear  to  the  world.     But  we  are  bound,  if 
we  are  Christian  people,  by  our  obligations  to  God,  and  by  our  obligations 
to  men,  to  try  and  make  Christianity  look  as  beautiful  in  people's  eyes  as 
we  can.     That  is  what  Paul  said.     "Adorn  the  teaching"  ;  make  it  look 
well,  inasmuch  as  it  has  made  you  look  attractive  to  men's  eyes.     INIen 
have  a  fairly  accurate  notion  of  beauty  and  goodness,  whether  they  have 
any   goodness   or   any   beauty  in   their  own  characters  or  not.     Do  you 
remember  the  words,   "  Whatsoever  things  are  lovely ;  whatsoever  things 
are  of  good  report,  whatsoever  things  are  venerable,  ...  if  there  be  any 
praise"— from  men— "think  on  these  things."     If  we  do  not  keep  that 
as  the  guiding  star  of  our  lives,  then  we  have  failed  in  one  very  distinct 
duty  of  Christian  people— namely,   to  grow  more  like  a  Hly,  and  to  be 
graceful   in  the  lowest  sense   of  that  word,   as  well  as  grace-full  in  the 
highest  sense  of  it.     We  shall  not  be  so  in  the  lower,  unless  we  are  so 
n  the  higher.     It  may  be  a  very  modest  kind  of  beauty,  very  humble, 
and  not  at  all  like  the  flaring  reds  and  yellows  of  the  gorgeous  flowers  that 
the  world  admires.     These  are  often  like  a  great  sunflower,  with  a  disc  as 
big  as  a  cheese.     But  the  Christian  beauty  will  be  modest  and  unobtrusive 
and  shy,  like  the  violet  half-buried  in  the  hedge-bank,  and  unnoticed  by 
careless  eyes,  accustomed  to   see   beauty  only  in  gaudy,  flaring  blooms. 
But   unless   you,    as   a   Christian,  are   in   your   character   arrayed  in  the 
"beauty  of  holiness,"  and  the  holiness  of  beauty,  you  are  not  quite  the 
Christian  that  Jesus  Christs  wants  you  to  be  ;  setting  forth  all  the  gracious 
and  sweet  and  refining  influences  of  the  Gospel  in  your  daily  life  and 
conduct. 

66 


GOD'S   PROMISE   OF  GRACE. 

His  favour  is  as  dew  upon  the  grass. — Prov.  xix.  12. 

The  prose  of  this  sweet  old  promise,  that  God  will  be  as  the 
dew  unto  His  people,  is,  **  If  I  depart  I  will  send  Him  unto 
you."  If  we  are  Christian  people,  we  have  the  perpetual  dew  of  that 
Divine  Spirit,  which  falls  on  our  leaves  and  penetrates  to  our  roots,  and 
communicates  life,  freshness,  and  power,  and  makes  growth  possible — more 
than  possible,  certain — for  us.  "  I" — Myself  through  My  Son,  and  in  My 
Spirit  — "I  will  be" — an  unconditional  assurance — "as  the  dew  unto 
Israel." 

Yes  !  That  promise  is  in  its  depth  and  fulness  applicable  only  to  the 
Christian  Israel,  and  it  remains  true  to-day  and  for  ever.  Do  we  see  it 
fulfilled?  One  looks  round  upon  our  congregations,  and  into  one's  own 
heart,  and  we  behold  the  parable  of  Gideon's  fleece  acted  over  again — • 
some  places  soaked  with  the  refreshing  moisture,  and  some  as  hard  as  a 
rock  and  as  dry  as  tinder,  and  ready  to  catch  fire  from  any  spark  from  the 
devil's  forge  and  be  consumed  in  the  everlasting  burnings  some  day.  It 
will  do  us  good  to  ask  ourselves  why  it  is  that,  with  a  promise  like  this  for 
every  Christian  soil  to  build  upon,  there  are  so  few  Christian  souls  that 
have  anything  like  realised  its  fulness  and  its  depth.  Let  us  be  quite  sure 
of  this— God  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  failure  of  Plis  promise.  And  let 
us  take  all  the  blame  to  ourselves. 

'*  I  will  be  as  the  dew  unto  Israel."  Who  was  Israel  ?  The  man  that 
wrestled  all  night  in  prayer  with  God,  and  took  hold  of  the  Angel,  and 
prevailed,  and  wept,  and  made  supplication  to  Him.  So  Hosea  tells  us, 
and,  as  he  says  in  the  passage  where  he  describes  the  Angel's  wrestling 
with  Jacob  at  Peniel,  "there  He  spake  with  us" — when  He  spake  He 
spake  with  him  who  first  bore  the  name.  Be  you  Israel,  and  God  will 
surely  be  your  dew,  and  life  and  growth  will  be  possible. 

The  dew,  formed  in  the  silence  of  the  darkness,  while  men  sleep,  falhng 
as  willingly  on  a  bit  of  dead  wood  as  anywhere,  hanging  its  pearls  on  every 
poor  spike  of  grass,  and  dressing  everything  on  which  it  lies  with  strange 
beauty,  each  separate  globule  tiny  and  evanescent,  but  each  flashing  back 
the  light,  and  each  a  perfect  sphere,  feeble  one  by  one,  but  united  mighty 
to  make  the  pastures  of  the  wilderness  rejoice — so,  created  in  silence  by  an 
unseen  influence,  feeble  when  taken  in  detail,  but  strong  in  their  myriads, 
glad  to  occupy  the  lowliest  place,  and  each  "bright  with  something  of 
celestial  light,"  Christian  men  and  women  are  to  be  "in  the  midst  of 
many  people  as  a  dew  from  the  Lord." 

67 


THE   DEW   OF   GOD'S   GRACE. 

/  will  be  as  tkc  dew  unto  Israel. — Hosea  xiv.  5. 

Scholars  tell  us  that  the  kind  of  moisture  that  is  meant  in 
March  8. 

these  words  about  the  dew  is  not  wliat  we  call  dew,  of  which, 

as  a  matter  of  fact,  there  falls  little  or  none  at  the  season  of  the  year 
referred  to  in  this  text,  in  Palestine,  but  that  the  word  really  means  the 
heavy  night-clouds  that  come  upon  the  wings  of  the  south-west  wind,  to 
diffuse  moisture  and  freshness  over  the  parched  plains  in  the  very  height 
and  fierceness  of  summer.  The  metaphor  of  "the  dew"  becomes  more 
beautiful  and  striking  if  we  note  that,  in  the  previous  chapter,  where  the 
prophet  was  in  his  threatening  mood,  he  predicts  that  "an  east  wind  shall 
come,  the  wind  of  the  Lord  shall  come  up  from  the  wilderness" — the 
burning  sirocco,  vidth  death  upon  its  wings — "  and  his  spring  shall  become 
dry,  and  his  fountain  shall  be  dried  up."  We  have,  then,  to  imagine  the 
land  gaping  and  parched,  the  hot  air  having,  as  with  an  invisible  tongue  of 
flame,  licked  streams  and  pools  dry,  and  having  shrunken  fountains  and 
springs.  Then,  all  at  once,  there  comes  down  upon  the  baking  ground, 
and  the  faded,  drooping  flowers  that  lie  languid  and  prostrate  on  the  ground 
in  the  darkness,  borne  on  the  wings  of  the  wind,  from  the  depths  of  the 
great  unfathomed  sea,  an  unseen  moisture.  You  cannot  call  it  rain,  so 
gently  does  it  diffuse  itself;  it  is  but  like  a  mist,  but  it  brings  Hfe  and 
freshness ;  and  everything  is  changed.  The  dew,  or  the  night  mist,  as  it 
might  more  properly  be  rendered,  was  evidently  a  good  deal  in  Hosea's 
mind  ;  you  may  remember  that  he  uses  the  image  again  in  a  remarkably 
different  aspect,  where  he  speaks  ot  men's  goodness  as  being  like  a 
morning  cloud  and  the  early  dew  that  passes  away.  The  natural  object 
which  yields  the  emblem  was  all  inadequate  to  set  forth  the  Divine  gift 
which  is  comj)ared  to  it,  because  as  soon  as  the  sun  has  risen,  with  burning 
heat,  it  scatters  the  beneficent  clouds,  and  the  "sunbeams  like  swords" 
threaten  to  slay  the  tender  green  shoots.  But  this  mist  from  God,  that 
comes  down  to  water  the  earth,  is  never  dried  up.  It  is  not  trani;ient. 
It  may  be  ours,  and  live  in  our  hearts. 

68 


THE  INDWELLING  LIFE  OF  CHRIST. 

Me  that  abideth  in  Me,  and  I  in  hint,  the  same  beareth  much  fruit :  for 
apart  from  Me  ve  can  do  nothing. — ^JOHN  xv.  5. 

Like  most  writers  and  speakers,  John  had  favourite  expressions, 
U&rch.  9. 

which  exercised  a  fascination  over  him,  and  were  always  ready 

to  trickle  from  his  pen  or  drop  from  his  lips.  He  has  a  vocabulary  of  his 
own.  Life  and  death,  light  and  darkness,  love  and  hatred,  are  antitheses 
constantly  recurring  in  his  writings,  and  in  which  he  puts  the  deepest 
things  he  has  to  say.  These  repetitions  are  not  tautology.  He  turns  the 
jewels  every  way,  and  lets  the  many-coloured  light  flash  from  them  at  all 
angles.  One  of  his  pet  words  is  this  "abide,"  significant  of  the  quiet, 
Contemplative  temper  of  the  man,  but  significant  of  a  great  deal  more. 
He  uses  it,  if  I  reckon  rightly,  somewhere  between  sixty  and  seventy  times 
in  the  Gospel  and  Epistles,  far  more  than  all  the  other  instances  of  its  use 
in  the  rest  of  the  I-Iew  Testament  put  together.  To  John,  one  great  char- 
acteristic of  the  Christian  life  was  that  it  was  the  abiding  life.  The 
Christian  life  is  a  lii'e  of  dwelling  in  Christ. 

I  have  said  that  this  is  one  of  John's  favourite  words.  He  learnt  it 
from  his  Master.  It  was  in  the  upper  room  where  it  came  from  Christ's 
lips,  with  a  pathos  which  was  increased  by  the  shadow  of  departure  that 
lay  over  His  heart  and  theirs.  It  was  when  He  was  on  the  eve  of  leaving 
them,  as  far  as  outward  presence  was  concerned,  that  He  said  to  them  so 
tenderly,  "Abide  in  Me,  and  I  in  you."  No  doubt  the  old  Apostle  had 
meditated  long  on  tlie  words,  and  experience  and  age  had  done  their  best 
work  for  him,  not  in  carrying  him  beyond  his  Master's  utterances,  but  in 
showing  him  how  these  were  elastic,  and  widened  out  to  contain  far  more 
of  wisdom,  of  comfort,  and  of  guidance  than  he  had  at  first  suspected  them 
to  hold. 

Heaven  must  bend  to  earth  before  earth  can  rise  to  heaven.  The  skies 
must  open  and  drop  down  love  ere  love  can  spring  in  the  fruitful  fields. 
And  it  is  only  when  we  look  with  true  trust  to  that  great  unveiling  of  the 
heart  of  God  which  is  in  Jesus  Christ  that  our  hearts  are  melted,  and  all 
their  snows  are  dissolved  into  sweet  waters,  which,  freed  from  their  icy 
chains,  can  flow,  with  music  in  their  ripple  and  fruitfulness  along  their 
course,  through  our  otherwise  silent  and  barren  lives.  With  unworn  and 
fresh  heart  we  may  bring  forth  fruit  in  old  age,  and  have  the  crocus  in  the 
autumnal  fields  as  well  as  iii  the  spring-tirtie  of  our  lives. 

69 


"ABIDE  IN  ME,  AND  I  IN  YOU." 

As  the  branch  cannct  bear  fruit  of  itself,  except  it  abide  in  the  vine ;  so 
neither  can  ye,  except  ye  abide  in  Me. — ^JoHN  xv.  4. 

"Abide  in  Me,  and  I  in  you."      That  is  the   ideal   of  the 
Uarch  10.  ...  . 

Christian  life,  a  reciprocal  mutual  dwelling  of  Christ  in  us  and 

of  us  in  Christ.     These  two  thoughts  are  but  two  sides  of  the  one  truth, 

the  interpenetration,  by  faith  and  love,   of  the  believing  heart  and  the 

beloved  Saviour,  and  the  community  of  spiritual  life  as  between   them. 

The  one  sets  forth  more  distinctly  Christ's  gracious  activity  and  wondrous 

love,   by  which   He  condescends  to  enter  into  the  narrow  room  of  our 

spirits,  and  to  communicate  their  life  and  all  the  blessings  He  can  bestow. 

The  other  sets  forth  more  distinctly  our  activity,  and  suggests  the  blessed 

thought  of  a  home  and  a  shelter,  an   inexpugnable  fortress  and  a  sure 

dwelling-place,    a  habitation    to  which   all   generations   may   continually 

resort.     He  dwells  in  us  as  the  spirit  or  the  life  in  the  body  communicated 

to  every  part,  and  vitalising  every  part.     We  dwell  in  Him  as  the  limb 

dwells  in  the  frame,  or,  as  He  Himself  has  put  it,  as  the  branch  dwells  in 

the  vine. 

Now  this  thought,  in  its  two  sides,  as  seems  to  me,  is  far  too  little 
present  to  the  consciousness  and  to  the  experience,  to  the  doctrinal  belief 
and  to  the  personal  verification  of  that  belief  in  our  own  lives,  of  the  mass  of 
Christian  people.  To  me  it  is  the  very  heart  of  Christianity,  for  which  that 
which,  in  the  popular  apprehension,  has  all  but  crowded  it  out  of  view — 
viz.,  Christ  y^r  us — is  the  preface  and  introduction.  I  do  not  M'ant  that 
that  great  truth  should  be  in  any  measure  obscured,  but  I  do  want  that, 
inseparably  connected  with  it  in  our  belief  and  in  our  experience,  there 
should  be  far  more  than  there  is,  the  companion  sister-thought,  Christ  in 
us  and  we  in  Christ. 

You  may  call  that  "mystical,"  if  you  like.  I  am  not  frightened  at  a 
word.  There  is  a  good  and  there  is  a  bad  mysticism.  And  there  is  no 
grasp  of  the  deepest  things  of  religion  without  that  which  the  irreligious 
mind  thinks  that  it  has  disposed  of  by  the  cheap  and  easy  sneer  that  it  is 
"  mystical."  If  it  is  true  that  we  can  only  speak  of  spiritual  experiences  in 
the  terms  of  analogies  drawn  from  material  things  ;  if  it  is  true  that  where 
a  man's  treasure  is  there  his  heart  is,  wherever  his  body  may  be  ;  if  it  is 
true  that  loving  hearts,  even  in  the  imperfect  unions  of  earth,  do  inter- 
penetrate and  enclose  one  another ; — then  the  mysticism  which  says  "  Christ 
in  me  and  I  in  Christ "  is  abundantly  vindicated.  And  your  Christianity 
will  be  a  shallow  one,  unless  the  truths  which  these  two  great  complementary 
thoughts  suggest  be  truths  verified  in  your  experience. 

70 


A  MUTUAL  INDWELLING. 

That  life  which  I  now  live  in  the  flesh  I  live  in  faith,  the  faith  which  is 
tn  the  Son  of  God,  who  loved  me^  and  gave  Himself  for  me. — Gal.  ii.  20. 

I  NEED  not  remind  you  how  the  great  thought  of  mutual 
indwelling  is,  through  John's  writings  particularly,  extended  not 
only  to  our  relation  to  Christ,  but  to  our  relations  to  God  the  Father  and 
God  the  Spirit.  The  Apostle  almost  as  frequently  speaks  about  our 
dwelling  in  God  and  God's  dwelling  in  us,  as  he  does  about  our  dwelling 
in  Christ  and  Christ's  dwelling  in  us.  And  he  reports  to  us  that  Christ 
spoke  about  the  Spirit  dwelling  with  us,  and  being  in  us,  and  that  for  ever. 
So  it  is  the  "  whole  fulness  of  the  Godhead,"  in  all  the  phases  of  its 
manifestation  and  possible  relation  to  humanity,  that  is  thus  conceived  of 
as  entering  into  this  deep  and  most  real  relation  to  Christian  souls.  Into 
that  fire  of  God  we  may  pass,  and  walk  in  the  midst  of  the  flame  unharmed, 
with  nothing  consumed  except  the  bonds  that  hold  us. 

Let  me  say  one  word  about  the  ways  by  which  this  mutual  indwelling 
may  be  procured  and  maintained.  You  talk  about  the  doctrine  as  being 
mystical.  Well,  the  way  to  realise  it  as  a  fact  is  plain  and  unmystical 
enough  to  suit  anybody.  There  are  two  streams  of  representation  in  John's 
writings  about  this  matter.  Here  is  a  sample  of  one  of  them  :  *'  He  that 
eateth  My  flesh  and  drinketh  My  blood  abideth  in  Me,  and  I  in  him." 
Similarly,  he  says  :  "If  that  which  ye  have  heard  from  the  beginning 
abide  in  you,  ye  also  shall  abide  in  the  Son  and  in  the  Father."  And, 
still  more  definitely,  *'  Whosoever  shall  confess  that  Jesus  is  the  Son  of 
God,  God  dwelleth  in  him,  and  he  in  God."  So,  then,  the  acceptance,  by 
our  understandings  and  by  our  hearts,  of  the  truth  concerning  Jesus  Christ, 
and  the  grasping  of  these  truths  so  closely  by  faith  that  they  become  the 
nourishment  of  our  spirits,  so  that  we  eat  His  flesh  and  drink  His  blood,  is 
the  condition  of  that  mutual  indwelling. 

And  if  that  seems  to  be  too  far  removed  from  ordinary  moralities  to 
satisfy  those  who  will  have  no  mysteries  in  their  religion,  and  will  not  have 
it  anything  else  than  a  repetition  of  the  plain  dictates  01  conscience,  take 
the  other  stream  of  representations :  "  If  we  love  one  another,  God  abideth 
in  us."  "He  that  abideth  in  love  abideth  in  God."  "If  ye  keep  My 
commandments,  ye  shall  abide  in  My  love."  The  harm  of  mysticism  is 
that  it  is  divorced  from  common  pedestrian  morality.  The  mysticism  of 
Christianity  enjoins  the  punctilious  discharge  of  plain  duties.  "  He  that 
keepeth  His  commandments  abideth  in  Him  and  He  in  him." 

71 


THE  CHRISTIAN  LIFE  ONE  OF  STEADFAST  PERSISTENCE. 

Be  thou  faithful  unto  death,  and  I  will  give  thee  a  crown  of  life. — 
Rev.  ii.  lo. 

I  AM  afraid  that  there  are  few  things  which  the  average  Christian 
March  12.  ^  ,  .  .  i  \         .  ,  • 

man  of  this  generation  more  needs  than  the  exhortation  to  stead- 
fast continuance  in  the  course  which  he  says  he  has  adopted.  Most  of  us 
have  our  Christianity  by  fits  and  starts.  It  is  spasmodic  and  interrupted. 
We  grow,  as  the  vegetable  world  grows,  in  the  favourable  months  only, 
and  there  are  long  intervals  in  which  there  is  no  progress.  Far  too  many 
of  us  have  seasons  of  quickened  consciousness  and  experience,  and  then 
dreary  winters  in  which  there  is  no  life,  and  nothing  but  black  frost  binding 
the  ground. 

Take  the  lesson  of  this  constantly  recurring  word  "abide,"  and  let 
there  be  in  your  Christianity  the  homely  virtue  of  perseverance,  for  heaven 
is  won  and  character  is  built  up  by  homely  virtues.  *'  No  day  without  a 
line,"  said  the  great  author,  as  the  secret  of  success.  I  look  round  upon 
our  Christian  communities,  and  I  see  many  whose  Christian  experience 
is  like  some  of  the  tropical  rivers,  bank  full  and  foaming  this  month,  and 
next,  when  the  hot  sunshine  comes  out,  a  stagnant  pond  here  and  another 
one  there,  and  between  them  a  ghastly  stretch  of  white  boulders.  When 
the  meteorologist  puts  his  sensitised  paper  out  to  record  the  hours  of 
brilliant  sunshine  in  the  day,  there  will  come,  in  our  climate  and  city, 
most  often,  a  line  where  the  sun  has  had  its  power,  and  then  a  long  stretch 
of  unchanged  paper,  where  it  had  gone  behind  a  cloud.  That  is  a  picture 
of  the  Christian  experience  of  a  disastrously  large  number  of  us.  Let  us 
learn  this  lesson,  "Abide  in  My  word;  let  My  word  abide  in  you."  A 
Christian  life  should  be  one  of  steadfast,  unbroken  persistence. 

Oh  !  but  you  say,  "that  is  an  ideal  that  nobody  can  get  to."  Well ! 
I  am  not  going  to  quarrel  with  anybody  as  to  whether  such  an  ideal  is 
possible  or  not.  It  seems  to  me  a  woeful  waste  of  time  to  be  fighting 
about  possible  limits  when  we  are  so  far  short  of  the  limits  that  are  known. 
Until  our  lives  approximate  a  great  deal  more  closely  to  a  continuous  line, 
do  not  let  us  take  each  other  by  the  throat  because  we  may  differ  as  to 
whether  the  line  can  ever  be  absolutely  closed  up  into  unbroken  continuity. 

How  beautiful  it  is  to  see  a  man,  below  whose  feet  time  is  crumbling 
away,  holding  firmly  by  the  Lord  whom  he  has  loved  and  served  all  his 
days,  and  finding  that  the  pillar  of  cloud,  which  guided  him  while  he  lived, 
begins  to  glow  in  its  heart  of  fire  as  the  shadows  fall,  and  is  a  pillar  of  light 
to  guide  him  when  he  comes  to  die. 

72 


THE  CHRISTIAN  LIFE  ONE  OF  ABIDING  BLESSEDNESS. 

Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart,  for  they  shall  see  God. — Matt.  v.  8. 

M  h  IS  0^^  Lord,  in  that  same  discourse  in  which  He  spoke  about 
abiding  in  us  and  we  in  Him,  used  the  word  very  frequently  in 
n  great  variety  of  aspects,  and  amongst  them  He  said,  "These  things  have 
[  spoken  unto  you,  that  My  joy  may  abide  in  you."  And  in  other  places 
we  read  about  "  abiding  in  the  light,"  or  having  eternal  life  abiding  in  us. 
And  in  all  these  various  places  of  the  use  of  this  expression  there  lies  the 
one  thought  that  it  is  possible  for  us  to  make,  here  and  now,  our  lives  one 
long  series  of  conscious  enjoyment  of  the  highest  blessings.  There  will 
be  ups  and  downs,  there  will  be  circumstances  that  agitate  and  disturb. 
It  will  sometimes  be  liard  for  us  to  keep  hold  of  our  Lord,  when  tempests 
are  sweeping  us  away  from  Him,  and  the  sea  is  running  hard  and  high. 
But,  "  My  joy  may  remain  in  you."  And,  even  if  there  be  a  circumference 
of  sorrow,  joy  and  peace  may  be  the  centre,  and  not  be  truly  broken  by 
the  incursions  of  calamities.  There  are  springs  of  fresh  water  that  dart  up 
from  the  depths  of  the  salt  sea,  and  spread  themselves  over  its  waves.  It 
is  possible,  in  the  inmost  chamber,  to  be  still  whilst  the  storm  is  raging 
without.  Oh  !  if  we  are  keeping  our  hold  on  Christ,  and  dwell  in  that 
strong  fortress,  no  matter  what  enemies  may  assail  us,  we  shall  be  kept 
in  perfect  peace.  It  is  our  own  fault  if  ever  external  things  have  power 
over  us  enough  to  shake  our  inmost  and  central  blessedness.  "  As  sorrowful, 
yet  always  rejoicing." 

Amidst  all  the  tragical  changes  to  which  all  things  around  us,  and  we 
ourselves,  are  exposed,  let  us  grasp  and  keep  our  hold  on  the  abiding 
Christ,  "the  same  yesterday,  and  to-day,  and  for  ever,"  and  in  Him  we, 
too,  fleeting  as  we  are,  shall  endure  for  evermore. 

May  I  add  one  word  ?  John  says  about  another  kind  of  abiding :  *'  He 
that  loveth  not  abideth  in  death"  ;  and  he  says,  "  He  that  believeth  not 
on  the  Son  shall  not  see  life,  but  the  wrath  of  God  abideth  on  him." 
There  is  a  permanence  heavy  with  all  loss  and  tragical  with  all  despair, 
"Abide  in  Me,"  for,  severed  from  Me,  ye  are  nothing. 

Christ  is  all  in  all  to  His  people.  He  is  all  their  strength,  wisdom,  and 
righteousness.  They  are  but  the  clouds  irradiated  by  the  sun,  and  bathed 
in  its  brightness.  He  is  the  light  which  flames  in  their  grey  mist  and  turns 
it  to  a  glory.  They  are  but  the  belt,  and  cranks,  and  wheels  ;  He  is  the 
power.  They  are  but  the  channel,  muddy  and  dry  ;  He  is  the  flashing  life 
which  fills  it  and  makes  it  a  joy.  They  are  the  body ;  He  is  the  soul 
dwelling  in  every  part  to  save  it  from  corruption  and  give  movement  and 
warmth. 

"Thou  art  the  organ,  whose  full  breath  is  thunder, 
am  the  keys,  beneath  Thy  finj^ers  pressed." 

73 


THE  PERMANENT  LIFE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN. 
He  that  doeth  the  will  of  God  abideth  for  ever. — i  John  ii.  17. 

These  words  imply,  not  so  much  dwelling,  or  persistence,  or 
Karen  14.  ^  _  c.  i 

continuousness,  during  our  earthly  career,  as,  rather,  the  absolute 
and  unlimited  permanence  of  the  obedient  life.  It  will  endure  when  all 
tilings  else,  "  the  world,  and  the  lust  thereof,"  have  slid  away  into  obscurity, 
and  have  ceased  to  be.  Now,  of  course,  it  is  true  that  Christian  men, 
temples  of  Christ,  are  subject  to  the  same  law  of  m.utation  and  decay  as 
all  created  things  are ;  and  it  is  true,  on  the  other  hand,  that  men 
whose  lives  are  "cribbed,  cabined,  and  confined"  within  the  limits  of 
the  material  and  visible  have  these  lives  as  permanent,  in  a  very  solemn 
and  awful  sense,  inasmuch  as  their  fruit  continues,  though  it  is  fruitless 
fruit,  and  inasmuch  as  they  have  to  bear  for  ever  the  responsibility  of  their 
past.  The  lives  that  run  parallel  with  God's  will  last,  and  when  everything 
that  has  been  against  that  will,  or  negligent  of  it,  is  summed  up,  and  comes 
to  nought,  and  is  abolished,  these  lives  continue.  The  life  that  is  in  con- 
formity with  the  will  of  God  lasts  in  another  sense,  inasmuch  as  it  persists 
through  all  changes,  even  the  supreme  change  that  is  wrought  by  death,  in 
the  same  direction,  and  is  substantially  the  same.  For  the  man  that  was 
doing  God's  will  here,  down  among  cotton  bales,  and  ledgers,  and  retorts, 
and  dictionaries,  will  do  God's  will  yonder,  amidst  the  glories ;  and  it  will 
be  the  same  life,  with  the  same  guiding  principles,  with  the  same  root  for 
its  activities.     So  it  will  last  for  ever. 

If  we  grasp  the  throne  of  God,  we  shall  be  co-eternal  with  the  throne 
that  we  grasp.  We  cannot  die,  nor  our  work  pass  and  be  utterly  abolished, 
as  long  as  He  lives.  Some  trees  that,  like  sturdy  Scotch  firs,  have  strong 
trunks,  and  obstinate  branches,  and  unfading  foliage,  looking  as  if  they 
would  defy  any  blast  or  decay,  run  their  roots  along  the  surface,  and  down 
they  go  before  the  storm  ;  others,  far  more  slender  in  appearance,  strike 
theirs  deep  down,  and  they  stand  whatever  winds  blow.  So  strike  your 
roots  into  God  and  Christ.  "He  that  doeth  the  will  of  God  abideth  iox 
ever."  And,  "In  My  Father's  house  are  many  abiding-places."  They 
that  have  here  dwelt  in  Christ,  persistently  seeking  to  have  His  truth 
dwelling  in  them  and  wrought  out  by  them,  will  pass  into  the  permanences 
of  the  heavenly  home, 

74 


THE  EVER-PRESENT  LOVE  OF  JESUS  CHRIST. 

Unto  Him  that  loveth  us,  and  loosed  us  from  our  sins  by  His  blood. — Rev.  i.  5. 

The  foundation  of  all  our  hopes,  and  all  our  joys,  and  all  our 
strength  in  the  work  of  the  world,  should  be  this  firm  conviction, 
that  we  are  wrapped  about  by,  and  evermore  in,  an  endless  ocean,  so  to 
speak,  of  a  present  Divine  love,  of  a  present  loving  Christ.  He  loveth  us^ 
says  John ;  and  he  speaks  to  all  ages  and  people.  The  units  of  each 
generation  and  of  every  land  have  a  right  to  feel  themselves  included  in  that 
word,  and  every  human  being  is  entitled  to  turn  the  *'  us  "  into  *'  me."  For 
no  crowds  block  the  access  to  His  heart,  nor  empty  the  cup  of  His  love 
before  it  reaches  the  thirsty  lips  on  the  furthest  outskirts  of  the  multitude. 
He  does  with  all  the  multitude  who  hang  on  Him  as  He  did  when  He 
fed  the  thousands.  He  ranks' them  all  on  the  grass,  and  in  order  ministers 
to  each  his  portion  in  due  season.  We  do  not  jostle  each  other.  There 
is  room  in  that  heart  of  Christ  for  us  all. 

"The  glorious  sky,  embracing  all, 
Is  like  its  Maker's  love  ; 
Wherewith  encircled,  great  and  small 
In  peace  and  order  move." 

Every  star  has  its  separate  place  in  the  great  round,  **and  He  calleth 
them  all  by  name,"  and  holds  them  in  His  mind.  So  we,  and  all  our 
brethren,  have  each  our  own  orbit  and  our  station  in  the  Heaven  of  Christ's 
heart,  and  it  embraces,  distinguishes,  and  sustains  us  all,  *'  Unto  Him  that 
loveth  us." 

Another  thought  may  be  suggested,  too,  of  how  this  present  timeless 
love  of  Christ  is  unexhausted  by  exercise,  pouring  itself  ever  out,  and  ever 
full  notwithstanding.  They  tell  us  that  the  sun  is  fed  by  impact,  from 
objects  from  without,  and  that  the  day  will  come  when  its  furnace-flames 
shall  be  quenched  into  grey  ashes.  But  this  love  is  fed  by  no  contributions 
from  without,  and  will  outlast  the  burnt-out  sun,  and  gladden  the  ages  of 
ages  for  ever. 

All  generations,  all  thirsty  lips  and  ravenous  desires,  may  slake  their 
thirst  and  satisfy  themselves  at  that  great  fountain,  and  it  shall  not  sink  one 
inch  in  its  marble  basin.  Christ's  love,  after  all  creatures  have  received 
from  it,  is  as  full  as  at  the  beginning,  and  unto  us  upon  whom  the  ends  of 
the  earth  are  come,  this  precious  and  sweet,  all  sufficing  love  pours  as  full 
a  tide  as  when  first  it  blessed  that  little  handful  that  gathered  round  about 
Him  on  earth.  Other  rivers  run  shallow  as  they  broaden,  but  this  "  river  of 
God  "  is  as  deep  when  it  wraps  the  world  as  if  it  were  poured  through  the 
narrows  of  one  heart. 

75 


THE   UNCHILLED   LOVE   OF  THE   CHRIST. 

IVho  loved  me,   and  gave  Himself  for  me. — Gal.    ii.    20. 

The  love  of  Christ  is  unchilled  by  the  sovereignty  and  glory  of 
His  exaltation.  There  is  a  wonderful  difference  between  the 
Christ  of  the  Gospels  and  the  Christ  of  the  Revelation.  People  have 
exaggerated  the  difference  into  contradiction,  and  then,  running  to  the 
other  extreme,  others  have  been  tempted  to  deny  that  there  was  any. 
But  there  is  one  thing  that  is  not  different.  The  nature  behind  the 
circumstances  is  the  same.  The  Christ  of  the  Gospels  is  the  Christ  in 
His  lowliness,  bearing  the  weight  of  man's  sins ;  the  Christ  of  the 
Apocalypse  is  the  Christ  in  His  loftiness,  ruling  over  the  world  and  time,— 
but  it  is  the  same  Christ.  The  one  is  surrounded  by  weakness  and  the 
other  is  girded  with  strength,  but  it  is  the  same  Christ.  The  one  is 
treading  the  weary  road  of  earth,  the  other  is  sitting  at  the  right  hand  of 
God  the  Father  Almighty ;  but  it  is  the  same  Christ.  The  one  is  the 
*'  Man  of  sorrows  and  acquainted  with  grief,"  the  other  is  the  Man 
glorified  and  a  companion  of  Divinity ;  but  it  is  the  same  Christ.  The 
hand  that  holds  the  seven  stars  is  as  loving  as  the  hand  that  was  laid  in 
blessing  upon  the  little  children  ;  the  face  that  is  as  the  sun  shining  in  its 
strength  beams  with  as  much  love  as  when  it  drew  publicans  and  harlots 
to  His  feet.  The  breast  that  is  girt  with  the  golden  girdle  is  the  same 
breast  upon  which  John  leaned  his  happy  head.  The  Christ  is  the  same, 
and  the  love  is  unaltered.  From  the  midst  of  the  glory  and  the  sevenfold 
briUiancy  of  the  light  which  is  inaccessible,  the  same  tender  heart  bends 
down  over  us  that  bent  down  over  all  the  weary  and  the  distressed  when 
He  Himself  was  weary;  and  we  can  lift  up  our  eyes  above  stars  and 
systems  and  material  splendours,  right  up  to  the  central  point  of  the 
universe,  where  the  throned  Christ  is,  and  see  "Him  that  loveth  us" — 


even  us i 


When  He  was  here  on  earth,  the  multitude  thronged  Him  and  pressed 
Him,  but  the  wasted  forefinger  of  one  poor  timid  woman  could  reach  the 
garment's  hem  for  all  the  crowd.  He  recognised  the  difference  between 
the  touch  that  had  sickness  and  supplication  in  it  and  the  jostlings  of  the 
mob,  and  His  healing  power  passed  at  once  to  her  who  needed  and  asked 
it,  though  so  many  were  surging  round  Him.  So  still  He  knows  and 
answers  the  silent  prayt."  of  the  loving  and  the  needy  heart.  Howsoever 
tremulous  and  palsied  the  ^;nger,  howsoever  imperfect  and  ignorant  the 
faith,  His  love  delights  to  ai.Nwer  and  to  over-answer  it,  as  He  did  with 
that  woman,  who  not  only  got  the  healing  which  she  craved,  but  bore 
away  besides  the  consciousness  of  His  love  and  the  cleansing  of  her  sins. 

76 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  SIN.. 

Every  one  that  commitieth  sin  is  the  bond-servant  of  sin. — John  viii.  34. 

__  ,  ._  Every  wrong  thing  that  we  do  tends  to  become  our  master  and 
our  tyrant.  We  are  held  and  bound  in  the  chains  of  our  sins. 
The  awful  influence  of  habit,  the  dreadful  effect  upon  a  nature  of  a 
corrupted  conscience,  the  power  of  regretful  memories,  the  pollution 
arising  from  the  very  knowledge  of  what  is  wrong,— these  are  some  of  the 
strands  out  of  which  the  ropes  that  bind  us  are  twisted.  We  know  how 
tight  they  grip.  I  am  speaking  now,  no  doubt,  to  people  who  are  as 
completely  manacled  and  bound  by  evils  of  some  sort — evils  of  flesh,  of 
sense,  of  lust ;  of  intemperance  in  some  of  you  ;  of  pride  and  avarice  and 
worldliness  in  others  of  you  ;  of  vanity  and  frivolity  and  selfishness  in 
others  of  you — as  completely  manacled  as  if  there  were  iron  gyves  upon 
your  wrists  and  fetters  upon  your  ankles. 

You  remember  the  old  story  of  the  prisoner  in  his  tower,  delivered  by 
his  friend,  who  sent  a  beetle  to  crawl  up  the  wall,  fastening  a  silken  thread 
to  it,  which  had  a  thread  a  little  heavier  attached  to  the  end  of  that,  and 
so  on,  and  so  on,  each  thickening  in  diameter  until  they  got  to  a  cable. 
That  is  how  the  devil  has  got  hold  of  a  great  many  of  us.  He  weaves 
round  us  silken  threads  to  begin  with,  slight,  as  if  we  could  break  them 
with  a  touch  of  our  fingers,  and  they  draw  after  them,  as  certainly  as 
destiny,  "at  each  remove"  a  thickening  "chain,"  until,  at  last,  we  are 
tied  and  bound,  and  our  captor  laughs  at  our  mad  plunges  for  freedom, 
which  are  as  vain  as  a  wild  bull's  in  the  hunter's  nets.  Some  of  you  have 
made  an  attempt  at  shading  off  sin, — how  have  you  got  on  with  it  ?  As  a 
man  would  do  who,  with  a  file  made  out  of  an  old  soft  knife,  tried  to  work 
through  his  fetters.  He  might  make  a  little  impression  on  the  surface, 
but  he  would  mostly  scratch  his  own  skin,  and  wear  his  own  fingers,  and 
to  very  little  purpose. 

But  the  chains  can  be  got  off.  Christ  looses  them  by  "His  blood." 
Like  a  drop  of  corrosive  acid,  that  blood,  falling  upon  the  fetters,  dissolves 
them,  and  the  prisoner  goes  free,  emancipated  by  the  Son.  That  death 
has  power  to  deliver  us  from  the  guilt  and  penalty  of  sin.  The  Bible  does 
noc  give  us  the  whole  theory  of  an  atonement,  but  the  fact  is  seen  clear  in 
its  passages  that  Christ  died  for  us,  and  that  the  bitter  consequences  of  sin 
in  their  most  intense  bitterness,  even  that  separation  from  God  which  is 
the  true  death,  were  borne  by  Him  for  our  sakes,  on  our  account,  and  in 
our  stead. 

His  blood  looses  the  etters  of  our  sins,  inasmuch  as  His  death,  touching 
our  hearts,  and  also  bringing  to  us  new  powers  through  His  Spirit,  which 
is  shed  forth  in  consequence  of  His  finished  work,  frees  us  from  the  power 
of  sin,  and  brings  into  operation  new  powers  and  motives  which  free  us 
from  our  ancient  slavery.  The  chains  which  bound  us  shrivel  and  melt 
as  the  ropes  that  bound  the  Hebrew  youths  in  the  fire,  before  the  warmth 
of  His  manifested  love  and  the  glow  of  His  Spirit's  power. 

77 


THE  GRATITUDE  OF  REDEEMED  SOULS. 

Worthy  art  Thou,  our  Lord  and  our  God,  to  receive  the  glory  and  the 
honour  mii  the  power. — Rev,  iv.  1 1. 

Worthy  is  the  Lamb  that  hath  been  slain. — Rev.  v.  12. 

Iff  ~  h  18  Irrepressible  gratitude  bursts  into  doxologies  from  John's 
lips,  even  here  at  the  beginning  of  the  book,  as  the  seer  thinks 
of  the  love  of  Christ  ;  and  all  through  the  Apocalypse  we  hear  the  shout  of 
praise  from  earth  or  heaven.  The  book  which  closes  the  New  Testament 
"shuts  up  all"  "with  a  sevenfold  chorus  of  hallelujahs  and  harping 
symphonies,"  as  Milton  says  in  his  stately  music,  and  may  well  represent 
for  us,  in  that  perpetual  cloud  of  incense  rising  up  fragrant  to  the  Throne 
of  God  and  of  the  Lamb,  the  unceasing  love  and  thanksgiving  which 
should  be  man's  answer  to  Christ's  love  and  sacrifice. 

Such  love  and  praise,  which  is  but  love  speaking,  is  all  which  He  asks. 
Love  can  only  be  paid  by  love.  Any  other  recompense  offered  to  it  is 
coinage  of  another  currency,  that  is  not  current  in  its  kingdom.  The  only 
recompense  that  satisfies  love  is  its  own  image  reflected  in  another  heart. 
That  is  what  Jesus  Christ  wants  of  you.  He  does  not  want  your  admiration, 
your  outward  reverence,  your  lip  homage,  your  grudging  obedience  ;  His 
heart  hungers  for  more  and  other  gifts  from  you.  He  wants  your  love,  and 
is  unsatisfied  without  it.  He  desired  it  so  much  that  He  was  willing  to  die 
to  procure  it,  as  if  a  mother  might  think,  "My  children  have  been  cold 
to  me  while  I  lived  ;  perhaps,  if  I  were  to  give  my  life  to  help  them,  their 
hearts  might  melt."  All  the  awful  expenditure  of  love  stronger  than 
death  is  meant  to  draw  forth  our  love.  He  comes  to  each  of  us,  and 
pleads  with  us  for  our  hearts,  wooing  us  to  love  Him  by  showing  us  all 
He  has  done  for  us  and  all  He  will  do.  Surely  the  Cross  borne  for  us 
should  move  us  !  Surely  the  throne  prepared  for  us  should  touch  us  into 
gratitude  ! 

That  Lord  who  died  and  lives  dwells  now  in  the  heavens,  the  centre 
of  a  mighty  chorus  and  tempest  of  praise  which  surges  round  His  throne, 
loud  as  the  voice  of  many  waters,  and  sweet  as  harpers  harping  on  their 
harps.  The  main  question  for  us  is,  Does  He  hear  our  voice  in  it  ?  Are 
our  lips  shut  ?  Are  our  hearts  cold  ?  Do  we  m.eet  His  fire  of  love  with  icy 
indifference?  Do  we  repay  His  sacrifice  with  unmoved  self-regard,  and 
meet  His  pleadings  with  closed  ears ?  "Do  ye  thus  requite  the  Lord,  O 
foolish  people  and  unwise  ?  " 

Take  this  question  home  to  your  heart,  How  much  owest  thou  unto  the 
I^ord?  He  has  loved  thee,  has  given  Himself  for  thee,  and  His  sacrifice 
will  unlock  thy  fetters  and  set  thee  free.  Will  you  be  silent  in  the 
presence  of  such  transcendent  mercy?  Shall  we  not  rather,  moved  by  His 
dying  love,  and  joyful  in  the  possession  of  deliverance  through  His  Cross, 
lift  up  our  voices  and  hearts  in  a  perpetual  song  of  praise,  to  which  our 
lives  of  glad  obedience  shall  be  as  perfect  music  accompanying  noble 
words,  "  Unto  Him  that  loveth  us,  and  looscth  us  from  our  sins  by  His 
own  blood  ?  " 

78 


A  GOOD   REASON   FOR   CONFIDENCE. 

And  noiv,  my  Utile  children,  abide  in  Him  ;  that,  if  He  shall  be  mani- 
fested, we  may  have  boldness,  and  not  be  ashamed  before  Him  at  His 
coming. — i  John  ii.  28. 

The  happy  assurance  of  the  love  of  God  resting  upon  me,  and 
making  me  His  child  through  Jesus  Christ,  does  not  dissipate 
that  darkness  that  lies  on  that  beyond. 

"  We  are  the  sons  of  God,  and,'"  just  because  we  are,  '*  it  does  not  yet 
appear  what  we  shall  be."  Or,  as  the  words  are  rendered  in  the  Revised 
Version,  "  it  is  not  yet  made  manifest  what  we  shall  be."  The  meaning 
of  that  expression,  "  It  doth  not  appear,"  or,  "  It  has  not  been  manifested," 
may  be  put  into  very  plain  words,  I  think,  thus  :  John  would  simply  say 
to  us,  '*  There  has  never  been  set  forth  before  men's  eyes  in  this  earthly 
life  of  ours  an  example  or  an  instance  of  what  the  sons  of  God  are  to  be  in 
another  state  of  being."  And  so,  because  men  have  never  had  the  instance 
before  them,  they  do  not  know  much  about  that  state. 

In  some  sense  there  has  been  a  manifestation  through  the  life  of  Jesus 
Christ.  Christ  has  died  ;  Christ  is  risen  again.  Christ  has  gone  about 
amongst  men  upon  earth  after  resurrection.  Christ  has  been  raised  to  the 
right  hand  of  God,  and  sits  there  in  the  glory  of  the  Father.  So  far  it  has 
been  manifested  what  we  shall  be.  But  the  risen  Christ  is  not  the  glorified 
Christ ;  and  although  He  has  set  forth  before  man's  senses  irrefragably  the 
fact  of  another  life,  and  to  some  extent  some  glimpses  and  gleams  of  know- 
ledge with  regard  to  certain  portions  of  it,  I  suppose  that  the  "glorious 
body  "  of  Jesus  Christ  was  not  assumed  by  Him  till  the  cloud  received 
Him  out  of  their  sight,  nor  indeed  could  He,  even  while  Fle  moved  among 
the  material  realities  of  this  world,  and  did  eat  and  drink  before  them.  So 
that,  while  we  thankfully  recognise  that  Christ's  resurrection  and  ascension 
have  brought  life  and  immortality  to  light,  we  must  remember  that  it  is  the 
fact,  and  not  the  manner  of  the  fact,  which  they  make  plain,  and  that, 
even  after  His  example,  it  has  not  been  manifested  what  is  the  body  of  this 
glory  which  He  now  wears,  and  therefore  it  has  not  yet  been  manifested  what 
we  shall  be  when  we  are  fashioned  after  its  likeness.  There  has  been  no 
manifestation,  then,  to  sense  or  to  human  experience,  of  that  future,  and 
therefore  there  is  next  to  no  knowledge  about  it. 

"  When  He  shall  be  manifested."  To  what  period  does  that  refer  ?  It 
seems  most  natural  to  take  the  manifestation  here  as  being  the  same  as  that 
spoken  of  only  a  verse  or  two  before.  "And  now,  little  children,  abide 
in  Him  ;  that  when  He  shall  be  fnanifestcd,  we  may  have  confidence, 
and  not  be  ashamed  before  Him  at  His  coming."  That  "coming," 
then,  is  the  "  manifestation  "  of  Christ ;  and  it  is  at  the  period  of  His 
coming  in  His  glory  that  His  servants  shall  be  like  Him,  and  see  Him 
as  He  is." 

79 


CHRISTIAN   GLADNESS. 

With  joy  shall  ye  draw  water  out  of  the  wells  of  salvation. — IsA.  xii.  3. 

„  ,20  There  are  better  things  than  joy.  Indeed,  there  are  few  things 
of  smaller  account  than  it,  if  taken  by  itself.  A  life  framed  on 
purpose  to  secure  it  is  contemptible  and  barren  of  nobility  or  beauty.  It 
is  certain  to  be  a  failure,  as  it  deserves  to  be.  To  pursue  it  is  to  lose  it. 
The  only  way  to  get  it  is  to  follow  steadily  the  path  of  duty,  without 
thinking  of  joy,  and  then,  like  sleep,  it  comes  most  surely  unsought,  and 
we  "being  in  the  way,"  the  angel  of  God,  bright-haired  Joy,  is  sure  to 
meet  us. 

The  best  in  a  man  recoils  from  any  system  which  makes  much  of  joy 
as  a  motive  to  action,  and  Christian  teachers  have  sometimes  done  unwit- 
ting harm  by  preaching  a  kind  of  gospel  which  has  come  to  little  more 
than  this  :  Be  Christians  that  you  may  be  happy.  No  doubt  the  natural 
result  of  every  right  and  pure  course  of  life  is  to  bring  a  real  joy ;  and 
lightness  of  heart  follows  goodness  as  certainly  as  fragrance  is  breathed 
from  the  opened  flowers.  With  every  pure  action  pure  joy  is  bound  up. 
Men  have  staggered  at  the  inequalities  of  outward  fortune,  and  been  driven 
by  them  to  doubt  whether  there  were  any  God.  But  it  would  be  a  far 
more  overwhelming  difficulty  if  there  were  no  connection  between  goodness 
and  happiness  ;  if  a  man  could  love  and  serve  God,  and  not  find  joy  in 
proportion  to  his  love  and  service  ;  if  a  pure  and  sober-suited  Joy  were 
not  one  of  the  "virgins  following"  Religion,  the  Queen,  it  would  be 
doubly  hard  to  believe  in  God. 

So,  though  it  is  by  no  means  the  highest  reason  for  being  a  Christian, 
nor  the  loftiest  view  to  take  of  the  effects  of  Christianity,  it  would  be  folly 
to  refuse  to  recognise  the  fact  that  a  true  Christian  life  is  a  joyful  life,  or 
to  neglect  to  use  it  as  a  real,  though  subsidiary,  motive  to  such  a  life.  It  is 
quite  possible  to  be  beset  all  about  with  cares  and  troubles  and  sorrows, 
and  yet  to  feel,  in  spite  of  loss  and  disappointment  and  loneliness,  a  pure 
foundation  of  joys  Divine  and  celestial  gladness  welling  up  in  our  inmost 
hearts,  sweet  amidst  bitter  waters.  There  may  be  life  beneath  the  snow  ; 
there  may  be  fire  burning,  like  the  old  Greek  fire,  below  the  water  ;  we 
may  pour  oil  on  the  stormiest  waves,  and  it  will  find  its  way  to  the  surface^ 
and  do  something  to  smooth  the  billows  ;  whilst  "  in  heaviness  through 
manifold  temptations"  we  may  yet  have  a  "joy  that  is  unspeakable  and 
full  of  glory."  For  I  suppose  that  a  man  has  this  power,  that  if  he  have 
two  objects  of  contemplation,  to  one  or  other  of  which  he  may  turn  his 
mind,  he  can  choose  which  of  the  two  he  will  turn  to.  Like  a  railway 
signalman,  you  may  either  flash  the  light  through  the  pure  white  glaot;  or 
the  darkly  coloured  one.  You  may  either  choose  to  look  at  everything 
through  the  medium  of  the  sorrows  that  belong  to  time  or  through  the 
medium  of  the  joys  that  flow  from  eternity.  The  question  is,  which  of  the 
two  do  we  choose  shall  be  uppermost  in  our  hearts  and  give  the  colour  to 
our  experience. 

80 


JOY  UNSPEAKABLE  AND  FULL  OF  GLORY. 

Whom,  not  havwg  seen,  ye  love ;  on  whom,  though  now  ye  see  Him 
not,  yet  believing,  ye  rejoice  greatly  with  joy  unspeakable  and  full  of  gloty  : 
receiving  the  end  of  your  faith,  even  the  salvation  of  your  souls. — i  Peter  i. 
8,9. 

__  ,  21  It  is  a  proof  of  the  low  average  of  Christian  life  that  this 
language  seems  to  most  commentators  all  too  wide  and  exuberant 
to  describe  the  ordinary  Christian.  But  the  Apostle  is  speaking  about  the 
ided  type,  about  the  possibility  ;  and  if  the  reality  of  an  average  Christian 
exj>erience  does  not  come  up  to  that,  so  much  the  worse  for  the  experience. 
It  does  not  affect  the  possibility  in  the  very  slightest  degree.  I  admit  the 
language  is  strong.  But,  as  we  have  already  remarked,  it  is  not  so  difficult 
to  explain  the  strong  epithets  as  applied  to  the  possibilities  of  Christian  joy, 
even  here,  as  it  is  to  break  up  a  sentence  so  compactly  knit  as  this  into  two 
halves,  one  referring  to  this  side  of  the  grave  and  the  other  to  the  world 
beyond. 

But  notice  that,  whatever  maybe  the  depth  and  greatness  of  this  joy, 
Peter  clearly  anticipates  that  it  is  to  be  simultaneous  with  the  "  heaviness 
arising  from  manifold  temptations." 

The  two  einotions  may  subsist  side  by  side,  neither  neutralising  the 
other,  nor  the  bright  and  the  dark  so  blending  as  to  make  a  monotonous 
grey.  But  the  occasions  for  sorrow  may  be  keenly  felt,  and  the  joy  which 
comes  from  higher  springs  may  none  the  less  possess  the  soul.  Thci  separate 
existence  of  the  two  extremes  rather  than  their  coalescence  in  an  apathetic 
middle  state  is  best.  Paul's  apparent  paradox  is  a  deep  truth,  "as sorrow- 
ful, yet  alway  rejoicing." 

And  then  the  language  of  Peter  reminds  us  that  the  gladness  which 
thus  belongs  to  the  Christian  Hfe  is  silent  and  a  transfigured  "joy  unspeak- 
able and  glorified,"  as  the  word  might  be  rendered.  "  lie  is  a  poor  man 
who  can  count  his  flock,"  said  the  old  Latin  proverb.  Those  joys  are  on 
the  surface  that  can  be  spoken.  The  deep  river  goes  silently,  with  equable 
flow,  to  the  great  ocean  ;  it  is  the  little  shallow  brook  that  chatters  amongst 
the  pebbles.  And  so  all  great  emotion,  all  deep  and  noble  feeling  is 
quiet ;  as  Cordelia,  in  the  play,  says,  she  can  "  love  and  be  silent,"  so  we 
at  our  happiest  must  be  glad  and  silent.  If  we  can  speak  our  joy,  it  is 
scarcely  worth  the  speaking.  The  true  Christian  gladness  does  not  need 
laughter  nor  many  words  ;  it  is  calra  and  grave,  and  the  world  would  say 
severe.    "  The  gods  approve  the  depth  and  not  the  tumult  of  the  soul." 

The  true  Christian  joy  is  glorified,  says  Peter.  The  glory  of  Heaven 
shines  upon  it  and  transfigures  it.  It  is  suffused  and  filled  with  the  glory 
for  which  the  Christian  hopes,  like  Stephen  when  "  God's  glory  smote 
him  on  the  face  "  and  made  it  shine  as  an  angel's.  Joy  may  easily  become 
frivolous  and  contemptible,  and  there  is  nothing  more  difficult  in  the  con- 
duct of  life  than  to  keep  gladness  from  degenerating  and  from  corrupting 
the  character.  But  the  effect  of  Christianity,  even  on  the  common  human 
joys,  is  to  exalt  and  dignify  them,  besides  the  effect  in  giving  the  joys  proper 
to  itself  which  are  in  their  very  nature  exalted  and  exalting.  It  changes, 
if  I  may  so  say,  the  light,  fluttering  Cupids  of  earthly  joys,  with  fiims) 
butterfly  wings,  into  calm,  grave  angels  with  mighty  plumes. 

81  Q 


JOY    THE    RESULT    OF    FAITH. 

Hitherto  have  ye  asked  nothing  in  My  Name  :  ask,  and  ye  shall  receive ^ 
that  your  joy  may  be  fulfilled,''' — John  xvi.  24. 

The  act  of  faith  is  the  condition  of  joy.  Joy  springs  from  the 
*^''  '  contemplation  or  experience  of  something  calculated  to  excite  it ; 
and  the  more  real  and  permanent  and  all-sufficient  that  object,  the  fuller 
and  surer  the  joy.  But  where  can  we  find  such  an  object  as  Him  with 
whom  w^e  are  brought  into  union  by  our  faith?  Jesus  Christ  is  all- 
sufficient,  full  of  pity,  full  of  beauty  and  righteousness,  all  that  we  can 
desire, — and  all  this  for  ever.  Union  with  Him  provides  an  object  on 
which  all  the  fervour  of  the  heart  may  pour  itself  out.  In  Him  our  faith 
grasps  the  absolutely  good  and  perfect.  Confidence  is  joy.  But  when 
confidence  fastens  on  such  a  Christ,  it  is  joy  heightened  and  glorified.  If 
we  have  the  certain  knowledge  that  the  dear  Lord  died  for  us,  and  live 
realising  His  power  and  sanctifying  Spirit,  His  constant  tenderness  and 
more  than  womanly  sympathy  and  affection,  then  nothing  can  come  to 
us  that  will  deprive  us  of  our  gladness  as  long  as  our  hearts  are  anchored 
upon  Him  only.  Our  gladness  will  be  accurately  co-temporaneous  with  our 
trust.  As  long  as  we  are  exercising  faith,  so  long  shall  we  experience  joy ; 
not  one  instant  longer.  It  is  like  a  piano,  whose  note  ceases  the  moment 
you  lift  your  finger  from  the  key  ;  not  like  an  organ,  in  which  the  sound 
persists  for  a  time  after. 

The  moment  you  turn  away  your  eye  from  Jesus  Christ,  that  moment 
does  the  light  fade  from  your  eye.  It  is  like  a  landscape  lying  bathed  in 
the  sunshine  ;  a  little  white  cloud  creeps  across  the  tace  of  the  sun,  and  all 
the  brightness  is  gone  from  leagues  of  country  in  an  instant.  As  long  as, 
and  not  a  hair's  breadth  longer  than,  our  faith  in  Christ  is  exercised,  so  long 
have  we  gladness.  You  cannot  live  upon  yesterday's  faith,  nor  furbish  up 
again  old  experience  to  produce  new  joy.  Ever  and  ever  you  must  draw 
afresh  from  the  fountain,  and  secure  constant  joy  by  continuance  of  renewed 
confidence  in  Him. 

There  is  a  sufficient  reason  for  the  failure  of  most  Christian  lives  to 
attain  this  perfection  of  joy  as  their  habitual  possession,  in  the  interrupted 
and  iragmcntary  character  of  their  faith.  If  we  are  only  exercising  it  by 
fits  and  starts,  we  shall  have  only  short  and  far-between  visits  of  gladness 
in  our  lives.  The  measure  of  our  faith  is  the  measure  of  our  joy.  He  that 
soweth  sparingly  of  the  former  shall  reap  sparingly  of  the  latter.  And  the 
duration  of  our  joy  depends  on  the  duration  of  our  faith.  What  wonder, 
then,  that  instead  of  its  continual  sunshine,  we  should  have  but  occasional 
glimpses  of  its  brightness,  and  that  our  skies  should  mostly  be  weeping  or 
grey  with  clouds?  The  reason  for  such  imperfect  and  interrupted  joy  is 
simply  our  imperfect  and  interrupted  faith. 

82 


THE   GIFT  WHICH  ENHANCES  JOY. 

The  God  of  hope  Jill  you  with  all  joy  and  peace  in  believing,  that  ye  may 
abound  in  hope,  in  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost. — Rom.  xv.  13. 

The  exercise  of  faith  is  itself  joy,  apart  from  what  faith  secures. 

We  stretch  out  our  hands  to  Christ,  and  the  act  is  blessedness. 

But  we  lay  hold  of  His  hand,  and  in  it  there  is  a  blessing  which,  when  we 

take  it,  makes  us  glad.     Faith  is  the  condition  of  joy  ;  and  the  salvation  of 

our  souls,  which  we  receive  as  its  end,  is  the  great  reason  for  joy. 

If  my  heart  is  humbly,  and  even  tremulously,  resting  upon  Him,  I  have 
got,  in  the  measure  of  my  faith,  the  real  germ  of  all  salvation.  What  are 
the  elements  of  which  salvation  consists?  The  fact  and  the  sense  of 
forgiveness  to  begin  with.  Well,  I  have  that,  have  I  not,  if  I  trust  Christ  ? 
A  consciousness  of  favour,  a  sense  of  the  friendship  of  God  in  Christ  ? — I 
have  these,  if  I  trust  Him.  A  growing  possession  of  pure  desires,  heaven- 
wrought  tastes,  of  all  that  is  called  in  the  Bible  "the  new  man" — well! 
I  have  that,  surely,  if  I  trust  Him.  My  soul  is  saved  when  it  is  delivered 
from  its  sin,  and  filled  with  the  love  of  God,  and  when  the  will  is  set  in 
glad  accord  with  His  will.  Such  progressive  salvation  is  given  to  me  if 
I  am  trusting  in  Him,  '*  Whom,  having  not  seen,  I  love."  All  these  will 
tend  to  joy.  The  consciousness  of  forgiveness  will  make  me  glad.  The 
sense  of  His  love  will  make  me  glad.  The  consciousness  of  union  with 
Jesus  will  make  me  glad.  Increasing  deliverance  from  the  burden  of  my 
self-will  will  make  me  glad.  A  growing  obedience  to  Him  will  make  me 
glad.  It  is  joy  to  the  just  to  do  judgment.  Brightening  hopes  will  make 
me  glad ;  and,  in  a  thousand  other  ways,  joy  unspeakable  and  full  of  glory 
will  attend  the  reception  in  our  souls  of  that  salvation  which  begins  here 
and  is  perfected  hereafter. 

Surely,  if  we  can  find  a  power  which  will  thus  ennoble  and  calm  our 
joy,  and  make  it  the  ally  of  all  things  lovely  and  of  good  report,  we  shall 
have  found  a  treasure  indeed. 

Such  a  power  we  can  find  in  fellowship  with  Jesus  Christ,  through 
whom  our  ovs,  which  have  too  long  trailed  along  the  ground,  may  be  lifted 
gii  above  the  frivolities,  and  sometimes  criminalities  and  hollownesses, 
which,  with  so  many  of  us,  do  duty  for  gladness.  "As  is  the  crackling  of 
thorns  under  a  pot,"  so  is  much  of  the  world's  mirth.  Make  sure,  my 
friend,  that  your  joy  is  deep  and  still,  noble  and  glorified,  being  drawn 
from  Christ. 

8.3 


THE  PERFECT  JOY  OF  A  PRESENT  SALVATION. 

In  Thy  presence  is  fuhiess  of  joy  :  in  Thy  right  hand  there  are  pleasures 
for  evermore. — Psalm  xvi.  II. 

The  present  salvation  points  onwards  to  its  own  completion, 
"°  ■  and  in  that  way  becomes  further  a  source  of  joy.  In  its  depths 
we  see  reflected  a  blue  heaven  with  many  a  star.  The  salvation  here 
touches  the  soul  alone  ;  but  salvation  in  its  perfect  form  touches  the  body, 
soul,  and  spirit,  and  transforms  all  the  outward  nature  to  correspond  to 
these  and  make  a  worthy  dwelling  for  perfected  men.  That  prospect 
brings  joy  beyond  the  reach  of  aught  else  to  afford.  The  glory  of  that 
perfect  salvation  gleams  already,  and  touches  the  Christian  joy  into  noble- 
ness and  solemn  greatness.  And  as  the  salvation  is  eternal,  so  the  joy  may 
be  abiding.  **Joys  are  like  poppies  spread,"  and  when  the  opiate  petals 
swiftly  drop,  an  ugly  brown  head  like  a  skull  is  left,  full  of  poisonous 
seeds.  But  this  joy  blooms  amaranthine  flowers,  and  being  the  reflex  of 
Christ's  own  eternal  joy,  endures  according  to  His  promise,  "that  My  joy 
might  remain  in  you,  and  that  your  joy  might  be  full." 

That  perfect  salvation  heightens  our  joy  here  by  the  hope  of  a  perfect 
joy  hereafter.  We  dare  to  look  forward  to  a  state  when  sorrow  and  joy 
shall  no  more  be  in  strange  juxtaposition,  the  white  and  the  black  dog  in 
the  same  leash,  but  joy  shall  reign  alone  and  sorrow  be  dethroned.  Our 
partial  experience  of  salvation  here  warrants  that  anticipation. 

Here  we  are,  like  the  Laplanders  in  their  winter  huts,  pitched  upon  the 
snowy  plain.  Desolation  and  white  death  outside,  but  inside  light  and 
warmth,  food  and  companionship.  Without  our  hut  are  sorrow,  and  loss, 
and  change,  and  care,  and  loneliness,  and  anxiety,  and  perplexity,  and  all 
the  discipline  that  is  needful  for  us,  though  within  we  have  Christ.  But 
then  we  shall  journey  south  to  the  lands  of  the  sun,  where  no  storms  rage 
and  winter  never  comes.  Here  our  joy  is  like  an  exotic  plant,  stunted  and 
struggling  with  an  ungenial  sky  and  unkindly  soil  ;  there  in  its  native  place 
it  spreads  a  broader  leaf  and  bears  a  sweeter  fruit.  Here  we  taste  of  the 
river  of  His  pleasures,  there  we  shall  drink  from  the  fountain.  All  comes 
from  Christ,  the  incomplete  salvation  and  sorrow-shaded  joy  of  the  present, 
the  perfect  salvation  and  unmingled  gladness  of  the  future.  The  nearer  we 
are  to  Him,  the  more  of  both  shall  wc  possess,  till  we  reach  His  presence, 
where  there  is  fulness  of  joy,  and  sit  at  His  right  hand,  where  there  arc 
pleasures  for  evermore. 

*4 


OUR  LORD'S  DIVINE  NATURE. 

And  without  controversy  great  is  the  mystery  of  godliness :  He  who  was 
manifested  in  the  flesh,  justified  by  the  Spirit,  seen  of  angels,  preached  among 
the  nations,  believed  on  in  the  world,  received  up  in  glory. — i  TiM.  iii.  i6. 

M  h  25  '^^^^  Divine  nature  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  woven  through 
the  whole  of  the  Book  of  Revelation,  like  a  golden  thread,  and 
manifestly  is  needed  to  explain  the  fact  of  this  solemn  ascription  of  praise 
(see  Revelation  i.,  5,  6)  to  Him,  as  well  as  to  warrant  the  application  of 
each  clause  of  it  to  Kis  will.  For  John  to  lift  up  his  voice  in  this  grand 
doxology  to  Jesus  Christ  was  blasphemy,  if  it  was  not  adoration  of  Him  as 
Divine.  He  may  have  been  right  or  wrong  in  his  belief,  but  surely  the  man 
who  sang  such  a  hymn  to  his  Master  beheved  Him  to  be  the  Incarnate 
Word,  God  manifest  in  the  flesh.  If  we  share  that  faith,  we  can  believe 
in  Christ's  present  love  to  us  all.  It  is  no  misty  sentiment  or  rhetorical 
exaggeration  to  believe  that  every  man,  woman,  and  child  that  is  or  shall 
be  on  the  earth  till  the  end  of  time  has  a  distinct  place  in  His  heart,  is 
an  object  of  His  knowledge  and  of  His  love. 

This  one  word,  then,  is  the  revelation  to  us  of  Christ's  love,  as  unaffected 
by  time.  Our  thoughts  are  carried  by  it  up  into  the  region  where  dwells 
the  Divine  nature,  above  the  various  phases  of  the  fleeting  moments  which 
we  call  past,  present,  and  future.  These  are  but  the  lower  layer  of  clouds 
which  drive  before  the  v/ind,  and  melt  from  shape  to  shape.  He  dwells 
above  in  the  naked,  changeless  blue. 

As  of  all  His  nature,  so,  blessed  be  His  Name  !  of  His  love  we  can  be 
sure  that  time  cannot  bound  it.  We  say,  not,  "It  was,"  or,  "  It  will  be," 
but  we  can  proclaim  the  changeless,  timeless,  majestic  present  of  that  love 
which  burns  and  is  not  consumed,  but  glows  v/ith  as  warm  a  flame  for  the 
latest  generations  as  for  those  men  who  stood  within  the  reach  of  its  rays 
while  He  was  on  earth.  "  I  am  the  First  and  the  Last,"  says  Christ,  and 
His  love  partakes  of  that  eternity.  It  is  like  a  golden  fringe  which  keeps 
the  web  of  creation  from  ravelling  out.  Before  the  earliest  of  creatures 
was  this  love.  After  the  latest  it  shall  be.  It  circles  them  all  around,  and 
locks  them  all  in  its  enclosure.  It  is  the  love  of  the  Divine  heart,  for  it  is 
the  same  yesterday,  and  to-day,  and  for  ever.  It  is  the  love  of  a  human 
heart,  for  that  heart  could  shed  its  blood  to  loose  us  from  our  sins.  Shall 
we  not  take  this  love  for  ours  ?  The  heart  that  can  hold  all  the  units  of  all 
successive  generations,  and  so  love  each  that  each  may  claim  a  share  in  the 
grandest  issues  of  its  love,  must  be  a  Divine  heart,  for  only  there  is  there 
room  for  the  millions  to  stand,  all  distinguishable  and  all  enriched  and 
blessed  by  that  love.  Is  there  any  meaning  but  exaggerated  sentiment  in 
this  word  of  Revelation,  any  meaning  that  will  do  for  a  poor  heart  struggling 
with  its  own  evil,  and  with  the  world's  miseries  and  devilries,  to  rest  upon, 
unless  we  believe  that  Christ  is  Divine,  and  loves  us  with  an  everlastino; 
love  because  He  is  God  manifest  in  the  flesh  ? 


THE  SIN  OF  SINS. 

And  He  did  not  many  mighty  works  there  because  of  their  unbelief. — 
Matt.  xiii.  58. 

,,     ,         There  is  but  one  sin  in  the  world,  properly  speakirc:,  and  that 
March  26,  .  -  r     i       y     i  t,? 

is  the  sin  of  not  loving  God.  The  sins  we  commonly  speak  of 
are  but  different  manifestations  of  this  one  sin — different  in  degree,  diverse 
in  various  respects,  diverse  in  enormity,  but  the  enormity  is  chiefly  to  be 
determined  by  the  measure  of  the  revelation  made  of  the  character  of  God 
unto  us.  God  becomes  manifest  in  Christ  ;  and  lo  !  this  unknown  God  is 
found  to  be  a  Being  of  most  amazing  love,  humbling  Himself  to  the 
meanest  of  mankind,  bearing  all  things,  suffering  long,  seeking  not  His 
own,  answering  the  insults  and  contradictions  of  sinners  with  words  and 
acts  of  incredible  blessing. 

Thus  dods  the  glorious  Being,  who  upholdeth  all  things  by  the  word 
of  His  power,  draw  near  to  you  with  papers  of  manumission,  whereby  you 
may  escape  the  captivity  of  sin  and  Satan,  the  liability  to  death  and  hell ; 
with  hands  pierced  in  the  conflict  with  him  who  has  the  power  of  death, 
winning  for  you  a  path  to  life  and  glory  ;  and  now  the  universe  looks  on  to 
see  how  you  will  receive  the  words  of  this  Redeemer.  It  is  possible  for 
you  to  commit  a  sin  of  greater  magnitude  than  you  conceive  of  by  simply 
neglecting  the  words  of  Christ.  How  fearful  the  alienation  of  the  heart 
from  God  when  such  a  surpassing  embodiment  of  Divine  love  fails  to 
overcome  the  indifference  of  that  heart ! 

The  terrible  thing  about  the  sin  of  unbelief  is  that  its  life  is  a  life  ot 
slumber.  It  makes  no  noise  in  the  heart.  It  has  no  visible  shape.  An 
angry  word  that  falls  from  your  lips  has  a  reverberation  in  the  depth  of 
your  heart ;  but  unbelief  is  simply  a  state,  and  does  not  ordinarily  reveal 
itself  by  any  overt  symptom.  It  is  the  atmosphere  in  wliich  you  move  ; 
and,  as  you  never  moved  in  any  other,  it  does  not  shock  you.  But  it  is 
the  sin  of  sins,  and  until  you  learn  to  hate  it  above  all  sins,  there  is  little 
hope  of  your  deliverance  from  sin. 

A  warmer  tone  oi  spiritual  life  would  change  the  atmosphere  which 
unbelief  needs  for  its  growth.  It  belongs  lo  the  fauna  of  tlie  glacial  epoch  ; 
and  when  the  rigours  of  that  wintry  time  begin  to  melt,  and  warmer  days 
to  set  in,  the  creatures  of  the  ice  have  to  retreat  to  arctic  wildernesses,  and 
leave  a  land  no  longer  suited  for  their  life.  Dig  down  to  the  living  Rock, 
Christ  and  His  infinite  love  lo  you,  and  let  it  be  the  strong  foundation, 
built  into  which  you  and  your  love  may  become  living  stones,  a  holy 
temple,  partaking  of  the  firmness  and  nature  of  that  on  which  it  rests. 

86 


CHRISTIAN  JOY  A  DUTY. 

Though  the  fig-tree  shall  not  blossom,  neither  shaU  fruit  be  in  the  vines  ; 
the  labour  of  the  olive  shall  fail,  and  the  fields  shall  yield  no  meat ;  the  flock 
shall  be  ait  off  from  the  fold,  and  there  shall  be  no  herd  in  the  stall;  yet 
J  zvill  rejoice  in  the  Lord,  I  will  joy  in  the  God  of  tny  salvation.-- 
Hab.  iii.  17,  18. 

It  is  a  plain,  positive  duty  to  cultivate  true  Christian  joy. 
"  Rejoice  in  the  Lord  always"  is  a  command.  The  true  ideal 
of  Christian  character  gives  a  very  prominent  place  to  gladness,  and  they 
who  do  not  in  some  measure  attain  to  a  joyous  religion  fail  in  a  very 
important  part  of  Christian  duty.  Of  course  there  are  many  experiences 
in  Christian  life,  and  there  are  sides  of  Christian  truth  which  are  calculated 
to  produce  a  sobered  solemnity  and  sadness.  But  whilst  all  that  is 
perfectly  true,  it  is  also  true  that  it  is  incumbent  upon  us  Christian  people 
so  to  gather  into  our  hearts  the  far  more  abounding  joys  of  Divine  com- 
munion, quiet  trust,  and  bright  hope,  as  that  there  shall  be  no  room  in  our 
lives  for  despondency  or  despair,  and  not  much  room  in  our  lives  for  tears. 
Christian  gladness  is  Christian  duty. 

Ah  !  but  you  say  :  "I  cannot  help  my  circumstances,  and  they  hinder 
joy."  No  !  but  God's  Gospel  is  given  to  us  to  make  us  think  less  of  our 
circumstances,  and  to  say,  as  the  prophet  said  of  old,  "Though  the 
fig-tree  shall  not  blossom,  and  there  be  no  fruit  in  the  vine,"  or,  in 
modern  language,  "Though  trade  be  bad,  and  the  profits  of  my  business 
be  decreasing  ;  though  I  have  but  a  poor  outlook  for  the  future,  and  do 
not  know  what  I  am  to  turn  to  next ;  though  my  home  be  desolate  com- 
pared with  what  it  was,  and  faces  that  used  to  be  beside  me  have  gone  into 
the  dust  for  ever,  yet  will  I  joy  in  the  Lord,  and  rejoice  in  the  God  of  my 
salvation." 

Has  it  come  to  this,  that  our  Christianity  is  the  kind  of  thing  that  the 
devil  suggested  Job's  religion  was — that  we  are  only  going  to  trust  when 
there  is  not  much  need  for  it,  and  to  believe  in  Him  and  love  Him  when 
He  is  doing  well  with  us  ?  If  we  are  at  the  mercy  of  circumstances,  then 
we  need  to  look  to  the  reality  of  our  Christianity. 

But  you  may  say  :  "  I  cannot  control  my  temperament.  I  am  not 
naturally  sanguine  or  buoyant  in  my  disiDosition."  No  !  Well,  God's 
Gospel  was  given  to  us  to  control  our  temperaments,  and  to  make  it 
possible  by  reason  of  its  great  gifts  and  motives,  that  characters  which 
were  not  naturally  inclined  to  be  joyful  should  be  made  so.  And  if  our 
Christianity  does  nothing  for  us  in  the  way  of  helping  us  to  appropriate 
alien  virtues,  I  do  not  know  what  difference  there  is  between  "nature" 
and  "grace"  ;  and  I  think  we  had  better  see  to  it  whether  we  have  any 
higher  power  than  our  own  working  in  our  hearts. 

S7 


THE    GREATNESS    OF    TRIFLES. 

And  they  compel  one  passing  by,  Simon  of  Cyrene,  coming  from  the 
country,  the  father  of  Alexander  and  Rufus,  to  go  with  Him,  that  he  might 
bear  His  cross. — Mark  xv.  21. 

Iff  \2&  ^^^^^  little  these  people  knew  that  they  were  making  this  man 
immortal  !  What  a  strange  fate  that  is  which  has  befallen  those 
persons  in  the  Gospel  narrative,  who  for  an  instant  came  into  contact 
with  Jesus  Christ.  Like  ships  passing  across  the  white  splendour  of  the 
moonlight  on  the  sea,  they  gleam  silvery  pure  for  a  moment  as  they 
cross  the  track,  and  then  are  lost  and  swallowed  up  again  in  the  darkness. 

This  man  Simon,  fortuitously,  as  men  say,  meeting  the  little  procession 
at  the  gate  of  the  city,  for  an  instant  is  caught  in  the  radiance  of  the  light, 
and  stands  out  visible  for  evermore  to  all  the  world  ;  and  then  sinks  into 
the  blackness,  and  we  know  no  more  about  him.  This  brief  glimpse  tells 
us  very  little,  and  yet  the  man  and  his  act  and  its  consequences  may  be 
worth  thinking  about.  If  that  man  had  started  from  the  little  village 
where  he  lived  five  minutes  earlier  or  later,  if  he  had  walked  a  little  faster 
or  slower,  if  he  had  happened  to  be  lodging  on  the  other  side  of  Jeru- 
salem, or  if  the  whim  had  taken  him  to  go  in  at  another  gate,  or  if  the 
centurion's  eye  had  not  chanced  to  alight  on  him  in  the  crowd,  or  if  the 
centurion's  fancy  had  picked  out  somebody  else  to  carry  the  cross  — then 
all  his  life  would  have  been  different.  And  so  it  is  always.  You  go 
down  one  turning  rather  than  another,  and  your  whole  career  is  coloured 
thereby.  You  miss  a  train,  and  you  save  your  life.  Our  lives  are  like 
the  Cornish  rocking  stones,  pivoted  on  little  points.  The  most  apparently 
insignificant  things  have  got  such  a  strange  knack  of  suddenly  developing 
unexpected  consequences,  and  turning  out  to  be,  not  small  things  at  all, 
but  great  and  decisive  and  fruitful. 

And  so  let  us  draw  from  that  thought  such  lessons  as  these.  Let  us 
look  with  ever  fresh  wonder  on  this  marvellous  contexture  of  human  life, 
and  on  Him  that  moulds  it  all  to  His  own  perfect  purposes.  Let  us 
bring  the  highest  and  largest  principles  to  bear  on  the  smallest  events  and 
circumstances,  for  you  never  can  tell  which  of  these  is  going  to  turn  out 
a  revolutionary  and  formative  influence  in  your  life.  And  if  the  highest 
and  the  holiest  Christian  principle  is  not  brought  to  bear  upon  the  trifles, 
depend  upon  it  it  will  never  be  brought  to  bear  upon  the  mighty  things. 

Indeed,  in  one  sense  life  is  made  up  of  trifles  :  and  if  the  highest  religious 
motives  are  not  brought  to  bear  upon  the  trifles  of  life,  they  will  very 
seldom  be  brought  to  bear  at  all,  and  life,  which  is  divided  into  grains 
like  the  sand,  will  have  gone  by  with  him  while  he  is  preparing  for  the 
big  events  which  he  thinks  worthy  of  being  regulated  by  lofty  principles. 
Take  care  of  the  pennies  and  the  pounds  will  take  care  of  themselves. 
Look  after  the  trifles,  for  the  law  of  life  is  like  that  which  is  laid  down 
by  the  psalmist  about  the  kingdom  of  Jesus  Christ:  "There  shall  be 
a  handful  of  corn  in  the  earth,"  a  little  seed  sown  in  an  aj^parently  un- 
genial  place  "  on  the  top  of  the  mountains."  Aye  !  but  this  will  come 
of  it .  "  the  fruit  thereof  shall  shake  like  Lebanon,"  and  the  great  harvest 
of  benediction  or  of  curse,  of  joy  or  of  sorrow,  will  come  from  the  minute 
seeds  that  are  sown  in  ilae  great  trifles  of  your  daily  life. 

88 


THE    BLESSEDNESS    AND    HONOUR   OF    HELPING 
JESUS    CHRIST. 

Fellow  workers  in  Christ  Jesus, — RoM.  xvi.  3. 

There  are  plenty  of  men  in  this  day  that  scofif  at  Jesus,  that 
"°  '  mock  Him,  that  deny  His  claims,  that  seek  to  cast  Him  down 
from  Ilis  throne,  that  rebel  against  His  dominion.  It  is  an  easy  thing  to 
be  a  disciple  when  all  the  crowd  is  crying  "  Hosanna  !  "  It  is  a  much 
harder  thing  to  be  a  disciple  when  the  crowd,  or  even  when  the  influential 
cultivated  opinion  of  a  generation,  is  crying  "  Crucify  Him  '.  Crucify  Him  !  " 
And  some  of  you  Christian  men  and  women  have  to  learn  the  lesson  that 
if  you  are  to  be  Christians  you  must  be  Christ's  companions  when  His  back 
is  at  the  wall  as  well  as  when  men  are  exalting  and  honouring  Him  ;  that 
it  is  your  business  to  confess  Him  when  men  deny  Him,  to  stand  by  Him 
when  men  forsake  Him,  to  avow  Him  when  the  avowal  is  likely  to  bring 
contempt  upon  us  with  some  people  ;  and  thus,  if  not  to  bear  our  own 
cross,  yet  in  a  very  real  sense  to  bear  His  Cross  after  Him.  Let  us  ^o 
fortii  unto  Him  without  the  camp,  bearing  His  reproach  ;  the  tail  end 
of  His  Cross,  it  is  the  lightest !  He  has  got  the  heaviest  on  His  own 
shoulders,  but  we  have  to  ally  ourselves  with  that  suffering,  and  if  it  be, 
with  that  despised  Christ,  if  we  are  to  be  His  disciples. 

There  will  be  hostility,  alienation,  a  coinparative  coolness,  and  absence 
of  a  full  sense  of  sympathy  in  many  people,  with  you,  if  you  are  a  true 
Christian.  There  will  be  a  share  of  contempt  from  the  wise  and  the  culti- 
vated of  this  generation,  as  in  all  generations.  The  mud  that  is  thrown 
after  the  Master  will  spatter  your  faces  too,  to  some  extent ;  and  if  we  are 
walking  with  Him,  we  shall  share  to  the  extent  of  our  communion  with 
Him  in  the  feelings  with  which  many  men  regard  Him.  Stand  to  your 
colours  !  Do  not  be  ashamed  of  the  Master  in  the  midst  of  a  crooked  and 
perverse  generation. 

Christ  needs  nothing,  and  yet  He  needs  us.  He  needs  nothing,  and 
yet  He  needed  that  ass  that  was  tethered  at  the  place  where  two  ways  met, 
in  order  to  ride  into  Jerusalem  upon  it.  He  does  not  need  man's  help,  and 
yet  He  does  need  it,  and  He  asks  for  it.  And  though  He  bore  Simon 
the  Cyrenean's  sins  "in  His  own  body  on  the  tree,"  He  needed  Simon  the 
Cyrenean  to  help  Him  to  bear  the  tree. 

And  He  needs  us  to  help  Him  to  spread  throughout  the  world  the 
blessed  consequences  of  that  Cross  and  bitter  Passion.  So  for  us  all  there 
is  granted  the  honour,  and  from  us  all  there  is  required  the  sacrifice  and 
the  service  of  helping  the  suffering  Saviour. 

89 


THE   HUMBLEST   CHRISTIAN   SERVICE   REWARDED. 

Wheresoever  the  Gospel  shall  be  preached  throughout  the  whole  world, 
that  also  which  this  woman  hath  done  shall  be  spoken  of  for  a  memorial  of 
her.—  Mark  xiv.  9. 

„  .  ^-  The  lesson  drawn  from  the  story  of  Simon  of  Cyrene  is  that  of 
u  .  ^j^^  perpetual  recompense  and  record  of  humblest  Christian  work. 
There  were  diiferent  degrees  of  criminality,  and  different  degrees  of  sym- 
pathy with  Him,  if  I  may  use  the  word,  in  that  crowd  that  stood  round 
the  Master.  The  criminality  varied  from  the  highest  degree  of  violent 
malignity  in  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  down  to  the  lowest  point  of  ignorance, 
and  therefore  innocence,  on  the  part  of  the  Roman  legionaries  who  were 
merely  the  mechanical  instruments  of  the  order  given,  and  stolidly  "  watched 
Plim  there  "  with  eyes  which  saw  nothing. 

And,  on  the  other  hand,  all  grades  of  service,  and  help,  and  sympathy, 
from  the  vague  emotions  of  the  crowd  who  beat  their  breasts,  and  the  pity 
of  the  daughters  of  Jerusalem,  the  kindly-meant  help  of  the  soldiers  who 
would  have  moistened  the  parched  lips,  and  the  heroic  love  of  the  women 
at  the  Cross,  whose  ministry  was  not  ended  even  with  His  life.  But  surely 
the  most  blessed  share  in  that  clay's  tragedy  was  reserved  for  Simon,  whose 
bearing  of  the  Cross  may  have  been  compulsory  at  first,  but  became,  ere 
it  was  ended,  willing  service. 

But,  whatever  were  the  degrees  of  recognition  of  Christ's  character, 
and  of  sympathy  with  the  meaning  of  His  sufferings,  yet  the  smallest  and 
the  most  transient  impulse  of  loving  gratitude  that  went  out  towards  Him 
was  rewarded  then,  and  is  rewarded  for  ever,  by  blessed  results  in  the 
heart  that  feels  it.  Besides  these,  service  for  Christ  is  recompensed,  as  in 
the  instance  before  us,  by  a  perpetual  memorial  :  "  How  little  Simon  knew 
that  wherever  in  the  whole  world  this  Gospel  was  preached,  there  also 
this  that  he  had  done  should  be  told  for  a  memorial  of  him  !  "  How  little 
he  understood  when  he  went  back  to  his  rural  lodging  that  night  that  he 
had  written  his  name  high  up  on  the  tablet  of  the  world's  memory,  to  be 
legible  for  ever. 

Why,  men  have  fretted  their  whole  lives  away  to  get  what  this  man 
got,  and  knew  nothing  of  one  line  in  that  chronicle  of  fame. 

And  so  we  may  say  it  shall  be  always,  "  I  will  never  forget  any  of  their 
works."  We  may  not  leave  them  on  any  records  that  men  can  read. 
What  of  that,  if  they  are  written  in  letters  of  light  in  that  "  Lamb's  Book 
of  Life,"  to  be  read  out  by  Him  before  His  Father  and  the  holy  angels 
in  that  last  great  day  ?  We  may  not  leave  any  separalile  traces  of  our 
service,  any  more  than  the  little  brook  that  comes  down  some  gulley  on 
the  hillside  flows  separate  from  its  sisters,  with  whom  it  has  coalesced 
in  the  bed  of  the  great  river  or  in  the  rolling,  boundless  ocean.  What  of 
that,  so  long  as  the  work,  in  its  consequences,  shall  last  ?  Men  that  sow 
some  great  prairie  broadcast  cannot  go  into  the  harvest  field  and  say,  *'  I 
sowed  the  seed  from  which  that  ear  came,  and  you  the  seed  from  which 
this."  But  the  waving  abundance  belongs  to  them  all,  and  each  may  be 
sure  that  his  work  survives  and  is  glorified  there;  "that  he  that  soweth 
and  he  that  reapeth  may  rejoice  together."  So  a  perpetual  remembrance 
is  sure  for  the  smallest  Christian  service. 

90 


THE  BLESSEDNESS  OF  CONTACT  WITH  THE  SUFFERING 

CHRIST. 

The  fellowship  of  His  sufferings. — Phil.  iii.  la 

Simon  the  Cyrenean  apparently  knew  nothing  about  Jesus 
^^  '  Christ  when  the  Cross  was  laid  on  his  shoulders.  He  would 
be  reluctant  to  undertake  the  humiliating  task,  and  would  plod  along 
behind  Him  for  a  while,  sullen  and  discontented,  but  by  degrees  be  touched 
by  more  of  sympathy  and  get  closer  and  closer  to  the  Sufferer.  And  if  he 
stood  by  the  Cross  when  it  was  fixed,  and  saw  all  that  transpired  there, 
no  wonder  if,  after  a  longer  or  a  shorter  examination,  he  came  to  under- 
stand who  He  was  that  he  had  helped,  and  to  yield  himself  to  Him  wholly. 

Yes  !  Christ's  great  saying,  "  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up,  will  draw  all  men 
unto  Me,"  began  to  be  fulfilled  when  He  began  to  be  lifted  up.  The 
centurion,  the  thief,  Simon  of  Cyrene,  by  looking  on  the  Cross,  learned 
the  Crucified. 

And  it  is  the  only  way  by  which  any  of  us  will  ever  learn  the  true 
mystery  and  miracle  of  Christ's  great  and  loving  Being  and  work.  I  beseech 
you,  take  your  places  there  behind  Him,  near  His  Cross,  gazing  upon  Him 
till  your  hearts  melt,  and  you,  too,  learn  that  He  is  your  Lord,  and  your 
Saviour,  and  your  God.  The  Cross  of  Jesus  Christ  divides  men  into  classes, 
as  the  Last  Day  will.  It,  too,  parts  men — sheep  to  the  right  hand,  goats 
to  the  left.  If  there  was  a  penitent,  there  was  an  impenitent,  thief;  if 
there  was  a  convinced  centurion,  there  were  gambling  soldiers ;  if  there 
were  hearts  touched  with  compassion,  there  were  mockers  who  took  His 
very  agonies  and  flung  them  in  His  face  as  a  refutation  of  His  claims.  On 
the  day  that  Cross  was  reared  on  Calvary  it  began  to  be  what  it  has  been 
ever  since,  and  is  at  this  moment  to  every  soul  that  reads  this,  *'  a  savour 
of  Hfe  unto  life,  or  of  death  unto  death."  Contact  with  the  suffering  Christ 
will  either  bind  you  to  His  service,  and  fill  you  with  His  Spirit,  or  it  will 
harden  your  hearts,  and  make  you  tenfold  more  selfish — that  is  to  say, 
tenfold  more  a  child  of  hell  than  you  were  before  you  saw  and  touched  and 
handled  that  Divine  meekness  of  the  suffering  Christ.  Look  to  Him,  I 
beseech  you,  who  bears  what  none  can  help  Him  to  carry,  the  burden  of 
the  world's  sin.  Let  Him  bear  yours,  and  yield  to  Him  your  grateful 
obedience,  and  then  take  up  your  cross  daily  and  bear  the  light  burden 
of  self-denpng  service  to  Him  who  has  borne  the  heavy  load  of  sin  for 
you  and  all  mankind. 

91 


THE   CRY  FROM   THE   DEPTHS. 

Out  of  the  depths  have  I  cried  unto   Thee,    O  Lord.     Lord,   heat  my 
voice:    let   Thine  ears   be  attentive    to   the  voice  of   my   supplications. — 

P?ALM    CXXX.    I,    2. 

.  .,  ,  The  depths  are  the  place  for  us  all.  Every  man  has  to  go 
^  '  clown  there,  if  he  take  the  place  that  belongs  to  him.  Unless 
you  have  cried  to  God  out  of  these  depths,  you  have  never  cried  to  Him 
at  all.  Unless  you  come  to  Him  as  a  penitent,  sinful  man,  with  the 
consciousness  of  transgression  awakened  within  you,  your  prayers  are 
shallow.  The  beginning  of  all  true  personal  religion  lies  in  the  sense  of 
my  own  sin  and  my  lost  condition.  Why,  the  difference  between  the 
tepid,  superficial  religion,  that  so  many  have,  and  the  true  thing  consists  a 
great  deal  more  in  this  than  in  anything  else— that  in  the  one  case  a  sense 
of  sin  has  been  awakened,  and  in  the  other  it  has  not.  I  believe,  for  my 
part,  that  as  far  as  creed  is  concerned,  the  reason  of  the  larger  number  of 
the  misapprehensions  and  waterings-down  of  the  full-toned  Christian  truth 
which  we  see  around  us  comes  from  this,  that  men  have  not  appreciated 
the  importance,  as  a  factor  in  their  theology,  of  the  doctrine  of  sin.  And 
so  far  as  practice  is  concerned,  one  main  reason  why  the  religion  that 
prevails  is  such  a  poor,  flabby,  impotent  thing  is  the  same.  If  a  man 
does  not  think  much  about  sin,  he  does  not  think  much  about  a  Divine 
Saviour.  Wherever  you  find  practically  men  and  women  with  a  Christianity 
that  hes  very  lightly  upon  them,  that  does  not  impel  them  to  any  acts 
of  service  and  devotion,  that  seldom  breaks  out  into  any  heroisms  of 
self-surrender,  and  never  rises  into  the  heights  of  communion  with  God, 
depend  upon  it  that  the  roots  of  it  are  to  be  found  here,  that  the  man  has 
never  been  down  there  into  the  pit,  and  never  sent  his  voice  up  from  it 
as  some  man  that  liad  tumbled  down  a  coalpit  might  fling  a  despairing 
voice  up  to  the  surface,  in  the  hope  that  somebody  stumblii:)g  past  the 
mouth  of  it  might  hear  the  cry.  "Out  of  the  depths"  he  has  not  cried 
unto  God. 

You  want  nothing  more  than  a  cry  to  get  you  out  of  the  depths.     If 

out  of  the  depths  you  cry,  you  will  cry  yourself  out  of  the  depths.  Here 
is  a  pian  at  the  foot  of  a  clilf  that  rises  beetling  like  a  black  wall  behind 
him ;  the  sea  in  front ;  the  bare,  upright  rock  at  his  back  ;  not  a  foothold 
for  a  mouse  between  the  tide  at  the  bottom  and  the  grass  at  the  top  there. 
What  is  he  going  to  do  ?  There  is  only  one  thing — he  can  shout.  Per- 
chance somebody  will  hear  him  ;  a  rope  may  come  dangling  down  in  front 
of  him  :  and,  if  he  has  got  nerve,  he  may  shut  his  eyes  and  make  a  jump 
and  catch  it.  There  is  no  way  for  you  up  out  of  the  pit  but  to  cry  to  God, 
and  that  will  bring  a  rope  down  ;  nay,  rather,  the  rope  is  there, — yom 
grasping  the  rope  and  your  cry  are  one.  "Ask,  and  ye  shall  receive." 
God  has  let  down  the  fulness  of  His  forgiving  love  in  Jesus  Christ,  and 
all  that  we  need  is  the  call,  which  is  likewise  faith,  which  accepts  while 
it  desires,  and  desires  in  its  acceptance  ;  and  then  we  are  lifted  up  there 
"  out  of  the  horrible  pit  and  the  miry  clay,  and  our  feet  are  set  upon  a 
rock,  and  our  goings  established." 

92 


A  DARK  FEAR. 

If  Thou,  Lord,  shonldest  mark  iniquities,  O  Lord,  who  shall  stand? — 
Psalm  cxxx  3. 

a    :i  2     "^^  "mark  iniquities"  is  to  impute  them  to  us.     The  word  in 

■^  '  '  the  original  means  to  watch — that  is  to  say,  to  remember  in 
order  to  punish.  If  a  man  be  regarded  by  God's  eye  through  the  mist 
of  his  own  sins,  they  turn  the  bright  sun  of  God's  own  light  into  a  red-hot 
flaming  ball  of  fire.  Like  a  man  having  to  yield  ground  to  an  eager 
enemy,  or  to  bend  before  the  blast,  every  man  has  to  bow  before  that 
flashing  brightness,  and  to  own  that  retribution  would  be  destruction. 

Do  we  not  all  know  that  our  characters  and  our  lives  have  been,  as  it 
were,  distorted  ;  that  our  moral  nature  has  been  marred  with  animal  lusts, 
and  that  ambitions  and  worldly  desires  have  come  in  and  prevented  us 
from  following  the  law  of  conscience  ?  Is  not  that  very  conscience,  more 
or  less  distorted,  drugged  and  dormant?  And  is  not  all  this  largely 
voluntary  ?  Do  we  not  feel,  in  spite  of  all  pleas  about  circumstances  and 
"heredity,"  that  we  could  have  helped  being  what  we  are?  And  do  we 
not  feel  that,  after  all,  if  there  be  such  a  thing  as  God's  judgment  and 
retribution,  it  must  come  on  us  with  terrible  force  ?  That  is  what  the 
Psalmist  means  when  he  says  that  if  God  be  strict  to  mark  iniquities  there 
is  not  one  of  us  that  can  stand  before  Him ;  and  we  know  it  is  true. 
You  may  be  a  very  respectable  man  ;  that  is  not  the  question.  You  may 
have  kept  your  hands  clear  from  anything  that  would  bring  you  within  the 
sweep  of  the  law  ;  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  it.  You  may  have  subdued 
animal  passions,  been  sober,  temperate,  chaste,  generous — a  hundred  other 
things.  Granted,  of  course  !  Ah  !  gross,  palpable  sin  slays  its  thousands  ; 
and  that  clean,  white,  respectable,  ghastly  purity  of  a  godless,  self- 
complacent  morality,  I  do  believe,  slays  its  tens  of  thousands.  And  you, 
not  because  your  goodness  is  not  goodness  of  a  sort,  but  because  you  are 
building  upon  it,  and  think  that  such  words  as  those  of  the  Psalmist,  go 
clean  over  your  heads — you  are  in  this  perilous  position. 

Oh,  dear  friend  !  will  you  take  ten  minutes  quietly  to  think  over  that 
verse,  "If  Thou,  Lord,  shouldest  mark  iniquities,  O  Lord,  who  shall 
stand  ?  "     Can  I  ?    Can  I  ? 

Is  it  not  true  that,  deep  below  the  surface,  contentment  with  the  world 
and  the  things  of  the  world,  a  dormant,  but  lightly  slumbering,  sense  of 
want  and  unsatisfied  need,  lies  in  your  souls  ?  Is  it  not  true  that  it  wakes 
sometimes  at  a  touch  ;  that  the  tender,  dying  light  of  sunset,  or  the  calm 
abysses  of  the  mighty  heavens,  or  some  strain  of  music,  or  a  line  in  a  book, 
or  a  sorrow  in  your  heart,  or  the  solemnity  of  a  great  joy,  or  close  contact 
with  sickness  and  death,  or  the  more  direct  appeals  of  Scripture  and  of 
Christ,  stir  a  wistful  yearning  and  a  painful  sense  of  emptiness  in  your 
hearts,  and  of  insufficiency  in  all  the  ordinary  pursuits  of  your  lives  ? 

93 


A   BRIGHT  ASSURANCE. 

But  there  is  forgiveness  with  Thee^  that  Thou  may  est  be  feared. — 
Psalm  cxxx.  4. 

A  ril  3  ** Forgiveness!"  The  word  so  translated  has  for  its  literal 
meaning  "cutting-oft",''  ''excision."  And  so  it  suggests  the 
notion  of  taking  a  man's  soul  and  his  sin,  that  great  black  deformity  that 
has  grown  upon  it,  feeding  upon  it,  and  cutting  it  clean  out  with  a  merciful 
amputating  knife.  You  know  that  doctors  sometimes  say,  "Well,  the 
only  salvation  of  him  would  be  an  operation,  but  the  tumour  has  got  so 
implicated  with  the  vital  tissues  that  it  would  scarcely  be  possible  to  appl}' 
the  knife."  And  that  is  what  the  world  says,  and  that  is  what  philosophy 
says,  and  modern  pessimism  says,  about  my  sin,  and  your  sin,  and  the 
world's  sin.  "No  !  we  cannot  operate  ;  we  cannot  cut  out  the  cankerous 
tumour."  And  Christianity  says,  "Miserable  physicians  are  ye  all;  stand 
aside  ! "     And  it  does  it  by  a  mighty  and  wondrous  act. 

God's  Divine  mercy  and  infinite  power  and  love  are  in  that  Cross  of  Jesus 
Christ,  which  separates  between  man  and  his  disease,  and  cuts  out  the  one 
and  leaves  the  other  more  living  after  the  amputation  of  that  which  was 
killing  him,  and  which  the  world  thinks  to  be  a  bit  of  himself.  It  is  not 
a  bit  of  himself,  says  the  Gospel ;  it  can  all  be  swept  away  through  His 
forgiveness. 

Men  may  say,  "There  cannot  be  forgiveness;  you  cannot  alter  con- 
sequences." But  forgiveness  has  not  to  do  only  with  consequences ; 
forgiveness  has  to  do  with  the  personal  relation  between  me  and  God. 
And  that  can  be  altered.  The  Father  forgives  as  well  as  the  judge  ;  the 
Father  forgives,  though  he  sometimes  chastises. 

If  a  man  has  sinned,  his  whole  life  thereafter  will  be  different  from  what 
it  would  have  been  if  he  had  not  sinned.  I  know  that  well  enough.  You 
cannot,  by  any  pardon,  alter  the  past,  and  make  it  not  to  be.  I  know  that 
well  enough.  The  New  Testament  doctrine  and  the  Old  Testament  hope  of 
forgiveness  does  not  assert  that  you  can,  but  it  says  that  you  and  God  can  get 
right  with  one  another.  A  person  can  pardon.  We  have  not  merely  to  do  with 
impersonal  laws  and  symbols;  we  have  not  only  to  do  with  "the  mill  of 
God  that  grindeth  slowly,"  but  with  God  Himself.  There  is  such  a  thing 
as  the  pardon  of  God,  and  forgiveness  is  possible.  His  love  will  come  to 
men  free,  unembittercd,  undammed  back  by  transgressions,  if  the  man  will 
go  and  say,  "Father!  I  have  sinned!  Forgive!  For  Thy  dear  Son's 
sake.  There  is  forgiveness  with  Thee  ! "  And  that  forgiveness  lies  at  the 
root  of  all  true  godliness.  "There  is  forgiveness  with  Thee,  that  Thoti 
may  est  be  feared.''^  No  man  reverences,  and  loves,,  and  draws  near  to 
God  so  rapturously,  so  humbly,  as  the  man  that  has  learned  pardon 
through  Jesus  Christ.  My  dear  friend,  believe  this  :  your  religion  must 
have  for  its  foundation  the  assurance  of  God's  pardoning  mercy  in  Christ, 
or  it  will  have  no  foundation  at  all  worth  speaking  about.  I  press  that 
upon  you,  and  ask  you  this  one  question  :  Is  the  basis  of  your  religion  the 
sense  that  God  has  forgiven  you  freely  all  your  iniquities? 

94 


GOD'S    INEXHAUSTIBLE   MERCY. 

O  Israel,  hope  in  the  Lord ;  for  with  the  Lord  there  is  mercy,  and  with 
Him  is  plenteous  redemption.  And  He  shall  redeem  Israel  from  all  his 
iniquities. — PsALM  cxxx.  7,  8. 

.     .,  .      There  is  nothing  which  isolates  a  man  so  awfully  as  a  conscious- 
ness of  sin  and  of  his  relation  to  God.     But  there  is  nothing 
that  so  knits  him  to  all  his  fellows,  and  brings  him  into  such  wide-reaching 
bonds  of  amity  and  benevolence,  as  the  sense  of  God's  forgiving  mercy  for 
his  own  sin.     So  the  call    bursts  from   the   lips  of  the   pardoned   man, 
inviting  all  to  taste  the  experience  and  exercise  the  trust  which  have  made 
him  glad  :  "  Let  Israel  hope  in  the  Lord."     Look  at  the  broad  Gospel  he 
has  come  to  preach.     "  For  with  the  Lord  there  is  mercy,  and  with  Him 
is  redemption."     Not   only  forgiveness;  but  redemption — and  that  from 
every  form  of  sin.     It  is  "plenteous" — multiplied,  as  the  word  might  be 
rendered.    Our  Lord  has  taught  us  to  what  a  sum  that  Divine  multiplication 
amounts.     Not  once,  nor  twice,  nor  thrice,  but  "  seventy  times  seven  "  is 
the   prescribed  measure  of  human  forgiveness ;  and  shall   men  be  more 
placable   than   God  ?     The   perfect   numbers,    seven   and    ten    multiplied 
together,  and  that  again  increased  sevenfold,  to  make  a  numerical  symbol 
for  the   Innumerable,  and  to  bring  the  Infinite  within  the  terms  of  the 
Finite.     It  is   inexhaustible  redemption,  not   to  be  provoked,  not  to  be 
overcome  by  any  obstinacy  of  evil — available  for  all,  available  for  every 
grade  and  every  repetition  of  transgression.     That  forgiving  grace  is  older 
and  mightier  than  all  sins,  and  is  able  to  conquer  them  all.     As  when  an 
American  prairie  for  hundreds  of  miles  is  smoking  in  the  autumn  fires, 
nothing  that  man  can  do  can  cope  with  it.     But  the  clouds  gather,  and 
down  comes  the  rain,  and  there  is  water  enough  in  the  sky  to  put  out  the 
fire.     And  so  God's  inexhaustible  mercy,  streaming  down  upon  the  lurid 
smoke-pillars  of  man's  transgression,  and  that  alone,  is  weight  enough  to 
quench  the  flame  of  man's,  and  of  a  world's,  transgressions,  heated  from 
the  lowest  hell.     "With  Him  is  plenteous  redemption  ;  He  shall  redeem 
Israel  from  a// his  iniquities."     That  is  the  Old  Testament  prophecy.     Let 
me  leave  on  your  hearts  the  New  Testament  fulfilment  of  it.     The  Psalmist 
said,  "  He  shall  redeem  Israel  from  all  his  iniquities."    He  was  sure  of  that, 
and  his  soul  was  at   "peace  in  believing"  it.     But  there  were  mysteries 
about  it  which  he  could  not  understand.     He  lived  in  the  twilight  dawn, 
and  he  and  all  his  fellows  had  to  watch  for  the  morning,  of  which  they  saw 
but  the  faint  promise  in  the  Eastern  sky.     The  sun  is  risen  for  us — "  Thou 
shalt  call  His  name  Jesus,  for  He  shall  save  His  people  from  their  sins." 
That  is  the  fulfilment,  the  vindication,  and  the  explanation  of  the  Psalmist's 
hope.     Lay  hold  of  Christ,  and  He  will  lift  you  out  of  the  depths,  and  set 
you  upon  the  sunny  heights  of  the  mountain  of  God. 

95 


THE  ONE   HELPER. 

A  very  present  help  in  trouble. — PsALM  xlvi.  I, 

Many  of  us  are  trying  to  make  up  for  not  having  the  One  by 
^^  '  seeking  to  stay  our  hearts  on  the  many.  But  no  accumulation 
of  insufficiencies  will  ever  make  a  sufficiency.  You  may  fill  the  heaven  all 
over  with  stars  bright  and  thick  as  those  in  the  whitest  spot  in  the  galaxy, 
and  it  will  be  night  still.  Day  needs  the  sun,  and  the  sun  is  one,  and  when 
it  comes  the  twinkling  lights  are  forgotten.  You  cannot  make  up  for  God 
by  any  extended  series  of  creatures,  any  more  than  a  row  of  figures  that 
stretched  from  here  to  Sirius  and  back  again  would  approximate  to 
infinitude. 

The  very  fact  of  the  multitude  of  helpers  is  a  sign  that  none  of  them  are 
sufficient.  There  are  no  end  of  *' cures"  for  toothache — that  is  to  say, 
there  is  none.  There  are  no  end  of  helps  for  men  that  have  abandoned 
God — that  is  to  say,  every  one  in  turn,  when  it  is  tried,  and  the  stress  of  the 
soul  rests  upon  it,  gives,  and  is  found  to  be  a  broken  staft'"  that  pierces  the 
hand  that  leans  upon  it. 

Consult  your  own  experience.  What  is  the  meaning  of  the  unrest  and 
distraction  that  marks  the  lives  of  most  of  the  men  in  this  generation? 
Why  is  it  that  you  hurry  from  business  to  pleasure,  from  pleasure  to 
business,  until  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  get  a  quiet  breathing-time  for 
thought  at  all  ?  Why  is  it  but  because  one  after  another  of  your  gods  have 
proved  insufficient,  and  so  fresh  altars  must  be  built  for  fresh  idolatries,  and 
new  experiments  made,  of  which  we  can  safely  prophecy  the  result  will  be 
the  old  one.  We  have  not  got  beyond  St.  Augustine's  saying  :  "  Oh,  God  ! 
my  heart  was  made  for  Thee,  and  in  Thee  only  doth  it  find  repose."  The 
many  idols,  though  you  multiply  them  beyond  count,  all  put  together,  will 
never  make  the  one  God.  You  are  seeking  what  you  will  never  find.  The 
many  pearls  that  you  seek  will  never  be  enough  for  you.  The  true  wealth  is 
One,  One  pearl  of  great  price. 

The  Lord  may  seem  to  sleep  on  His  hard,  wooden  pillow  in  the  stern 
of  the  little  fishing-boat,  and  even  while  the  frail  craft  begins  to  fill  may 
show  no  sign  of  help  ;  but  ere  the  waves  have  rolled  over  her,  the  cry  of 
fear  that  yet  trusts,  and  of  trust  that  yet  fears,  wakes  Him  who  knew  the 
need,  even  while  He  seemed  to  slumber,  and  one  mighty  word,  as  of  a 
master  to  some  petulant  slave,  '*  Peace,  be  still,"  hushes  the  confusion,  and 
rebukes  the  fear,  and  rewards  the  faith.  We  on  whom  the  ends  of  the 
earth  are  come  have  the  same  Helper,  the  same  Friend,  that  "the  world's 
grey  patriarchs  "  had.  They  that  go  before  do  not  prevent  them  that  come 
after.  The  river  is  full  still.  The  van  of  the  pilgrim  host  did,  indeed, 
long,  long  ago,  drink,  and  were  satisfied,  but  the  bright  waters  are  still  as 
pellucid,  still  as  near,  still  as  refreshing,  still  as  abundant  as  they  ever  were, 

96 


THE  PROOF  OF  GOD'S   LOVE. 

God  corAiiienaeih  His  own  love  toward  us,  in  that,  while  we  were  yet 
sinners,  Christ  died  for  us." — RoM.  v.  8. 

'  A  rii  6  "  OOD  commendeth  His  love."  That  is  true  and  beautiful,  but 
that  is  not  all  that  the  Apostle  means.  The  idea  of  commenda- 
tion is  certainly  in  it,  but  there  is  also  another  idea  which  in  order  precedes 
the  commendation — viz.,  that  of  confirmation,  or  establishing  as  a  certainty. 
Now  these  two  things  are  ordinarily  separated.  We  first  of  all  prove  a 
fact,  and  then  we  press  it  upon  people,  or  "  commend  "  it  to  their  feelings  ; 
but  in  regard  of  the  love  of  God  these  two  are  one.  You  cannot  prove 
God's  love  as  you  can  a  mathematical  problem,  as  a  bare  intellectual 
process.  You  mu?t  prove  it  Ijy  showing  it  in  operation  ;  and  the  confirma- 
tion of  its  existence  which  is  derived  from  the  witness  of  its  energy  is  at 
once  the  demonstration  of  it  to  the  understanding  and  the  commending  of 
it  to  the  heart  and  the  feeUngs. 

So,  says  Paul,  God  in  one  and  the  same  act  establishes  the  certainty  of 
His  love,  for  our  understanding,  and  presses  it  upon  our  hearts  and  con- 
sciences. "  He  commends  His  love  towards  us."  It  must  be  kept  in 
mind  that  Paul  was  writing  to  Roman  Christians,  a  good  many  years  after 
the  death  of  Jesus  Christ — to  men  and  women  that  had  never  seen  Christ, 
and  whom  Christ  had  never  seen  in  the  flesh.  And  to  these  people  he  says, 
*'  Christ  died  for  zis^  You  Roman  believers  that  never  heard  about  Him 
till  long  after  His  Crucifixion — He  died  for  you.  And  God,  not  coinniendea, 
but  "  commendeth,  His  love  towards  us  "  in  that  death — which,  put  into  other 
words,  is  this  :  the  Cross  of  Jesus  Christ  is  for  all  the  world,  for  every  age, 
the  standing  and  ever-present  demonstration  of  the  boundless  love  of  God, 
God  not  merely  "commends,"  but  "proves,"  His  love  by  Christ's  death. 
It  is  the  one  evidence  which  makes  that  often  doubted  fact  certain.  By  it 
alone  is  it  possible  to  hold  the  conviction  that,  in  spite  of  all  that  seems  to 
contradict  the  belief,  God  is  Love. 

If  this  be  the  summing-up  of  all  religion,  a  practical  conclusion  follows. 
When  we  feel  ourselves  defective  in  the  glow  and  operative  driving  power 
of  love  to  God,  what  is  the  right  thing  to  do  ?  When  a  man  is  cold  he  will 
not  warm  himself  by  putting  a  clinical  thermometer  into  his  mouth,  and 
taking  his  temperature,  will  he  ?  Let  him  go  into  the  sunshine  and  he  will 
be  warmed  up.  Vou  can  pound  ice  in  a  mortar,  and  except  for  the  little 
heat  generated  by  the  impact  of  the  pestle,  it  will  keep  ice  still.  But  float 
the  iceberg  down  into  the  tropics,  and  what  has  become  of  it  ?  It  has  all 
run  down  into  sweet  v/arm  water,  and  mingled  with  the  warm  ocean  that 
has  dissolved  it.  So  do  not  think  about  yourself  and  your  own  loveless 
heart  so  much,  but  think  about  God,  and  the  infinite  welling  up  of  love  in 
His  heart  to  you,  a  great  deal  more.  "  We  love  Plim  because  He  first  loved 
us."     Therefore,  to  love  Him  more,  we  must  feel  more  that  He  does  love  us. 

Then  let  me  say,  too,  that  if  we  love  Him,  it  will  be  the  motive  power 
and  spring  of  all  manner  of  obediences  and  glad  services.  It  is  the  mother- 
tincture,  so  to  speak,  which  you  can  colour,  and  to  which  you  can  add  in 
various  ways,  and  produce  variously  tinted  and  tasted  and  perfumed  com- 
mixtures. Love  lies  at  the  foundation  of  all  Christian  goodness.  It  will 
lead  to  the  suljjugation  of  the  will.  And  that  is  the  thing  that  is  most  of  all 
needed  to  make  a  man  righteous  and  pure.  So  St.  Augustine's  paradox, 
rightly  understood,  is  a  magnificent  truth,  "  Love  !  and  do  what  you  will." 
For  then  you  will  be  sure  to  will  what  God  wills,  and  you  ought. 

97  H 


FOR  HIS  SAKE. 
I  do  not  this  for  your  sake,  but  for  Mine  Holy  Name. — Ezek.  xxxvi.  22. 

Do  you  not  think  that  the  Cross  of  Jesus  Christ  speaks  to  the 
world  of  a  love  which  is  not  drawn  forth  by  any  merit  of 
r;oodncss  in  us?  Men  love  because  they  dimly  discern,  or  think  they 
do,  that  there  is  something  worthy  of  their  love.  God  loves  because  we 
need  Ilim  ;  God  loves  Ijecause  He  is  God.  His  love  is  not  evoked  by 
anything  in  m.^.  except  my  dependence  and  necessity  ;  but  God's  love  wells 
up  from  the  infinite  depth  of  His  own  nature,  undrawn  forth  by  anything 
in  His  creatures.  "  I  Am  that  I  Am  "  is  His  name.  He  is  His  own  cause, 
His  own  motive  ;  and  as  His  being,  so  His  love,  which  is  His  being,  is 
automatic,  self-originated,  and  pouring  out  for  ever,  in  obedience  to  the 
impulse  of  His  own  heart,  the  inexhaustible  treasures  of  His  love.  "Not 
for  your  sakes  be  it  known  unto  you,  O  house  of  Israel,  but  for  Mine  own 
Name's  sake." 

But  if  that  love  revealed  by  the  Cross  be  a  love  which  is  not  drawn 
forth  by  any  merit  or  goodness  of  ours,  then,  not  being  contingent  upon 
our  goodness,  it  is  not  turned  away  by  our  badness.  We  cannot  sin  it 
away.  It  was  not  bestowed  on  us  at  first,  any  more  than  His  sunshine 
falls  on  us,  because  we  deserve  it,  but  because  He  is  God,  and  He  made 
us.  And  so  it  will  encircle  us  for  ever,  and  cleave  to  us  to  the  very  end, 
and  never  let  us  go. 

The  Cross  of  Christ  preaches  to  us  a  love  that  has  no  cause,  motive, 
reason,  or  origin  except  Himself. 

That  is  what  is  meant  by  the  theological  phrase  "free  grace" — an 
expression  which  has  often  been  regarded  as  the  shibboleth  of  a  narrow 
school,  but  which,  rightly  understood,  is  no  hard  piece  of  technical 
theology,  but  throbbing  with  life — the  very  grandest  conception  of  the 
heart  of  God  which  men  can  grasp.  Such  grace,  the  gilt  of  such  love, 
does  the  Christ  commend  to  us. 

"For  our  behalf,"— bending  over  us  in  order  that  the  benefit  might 
come  to  us, — that  is  the  picturesque  metaphor  that  lies  in  the  little  word 
"  for."  Observe,  too,  the  significant  present  tense,  "  God  cowwnendeth 
His  love,"  and  the  empliatic  repetition  three  several  times  in  the  verse 
(Rom.  v.  S)  of  "us"  and  "  wc."  Both  peculiarities  bring  out  the  great 
truth  that  Christ's  death  is  a  death,  "not  for  an  age,  but  fur  all  time"  ; 
nut  for  this,  that,  or  the  other  man  ;  not  for  a  section  of  the  race,  but  for 
the  whole  of  us -in  all  generations.  The  power  of  that  death,  as  the 
sweep  of  that  love,  extends  over  all  humanity,  and  holds  forth  benefits  to 
ev.'ry  man  of  woman  l)f)rn. 

98 


IS  CHrasT's  death  a  real  benefit  to  me? 

Lord^  to  whom  shall  we  go  ?  Thou  hast  the  words  of  eternal  life. — 
John  vi.  68. 

Now,  I  want  to  ask  a  question  ver}'  earnestly :  In  what  conceiv- 
able way  can  Christ's  death  be  a  real  benefit  to  me  ?  How  can 
it  do  me  any  good  ?  A  sweet,  a  tender,  an  unexampled,  beautiful  story 
of  innocence  and  meekness  and  martyrdom  which  will  shine  in  the  memoiy 
of  the  world,  and  on  the  pages  of  history,  as  long  as  the  world  shall  last  ! 
It  is  all  that ;  but  what  good  does  it  do  me  ?  Where  does  the  benefit  to  ma 
individually  come  in  ?  There  is  only  one  answer,  and  I  urge  you  to  ask 
yourselves  if,  in  plain,  sober,  common  sense,  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ  means 
anything  at  all  to  anybody,  more  than  other  martyrdoms  and  beautiful 
deaths,  except  upon  one  supposition,  that  He  diedy^^r  us,  because  He  died 
instead  of  us.  The  two  things  are  not  identical ;  but,  as  I  believe,  and 
venture  to  press  upon  you,  in  this  case  they  are  identical.  I  do  not  know 
where  you  will  find  any  justification  for  the  rapturous  language  of  the 
whole  New  Testament  about  the  death  of  Christ  and  its  benefits  flowing 
to  the  whole  world,  unless  you  take  the  Master's  own  words,  "  The  Son  of 
Man  came  to  minister,  and  to  give  His  life  a  ransom  instead  of  mz.x\y." 

Ah  !  dear  friend,  there  we  touch  the  bed-rock.  That  is  the  truth  that 
flashes  up  the  Cross  into  lustre,  before  which  the  sun's  light  is  but  darkness. 
He  who  bore  it  died  for  the  whole  woi  Id,  and  was  the  eternal  Son  of  the 
Father.  If  we  believe  that,  then  we  can  understand  how  Paul  here  blends 
together  the  heart  of  God  and  the  heart  of  Christ,  and  sets  high  above 
Nature  and  her  ambiguous  oracles,  high  above  Providence  and  its  many 
perplexities,  and  in  front  of  all  the  shrinkings  and  the  fears  of  a  reasonably 
alarmed  conscience,  the  one  truth,  "God  hath  proved  His  love  for  us,  in 
that,  while  we  were  yet  sinners,  Christ  died  for  us."  Is  that  your  faith, 
your  notion  of  Christ's  death,  and  of  its  relation  to  the  love  of  God  ? 

There  are  two  passages  of  Scripture  which  contain  the  whole  secret  of 
God,  and  the  whole  secret  of  a  noble,  blessed,  human  life.  And  here  they 
are  :  "God  so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His  only  begotten  Son,  that 
whosoever  believeth  in  Him  shall  not  perish,  but  have  everlasting  life.'* 
If  that  is  your  thought  about  God,  you  know  enough  about  Him  for  tim.e 
and  eternity.  "  We  love  Him  because  He  first  loved  us."  If  you  can  say 
that  about  yourself,  all  is  well. 

Dear  friend,  do  you  believe  the  one?    Do  your  affirm  the  other? 

99 


SLEEPING   THROUGH  JESUS. 

For  if  we  believe  that  Jesus  died  and  I'ose  again,  even  so  them  also  that 
are  fallen  asleep  in  Jesus  will  God  bring  with  Him. —  i  Thess.  iv.  14. 

They  "  sleep  through  Him."  It  is  by  reason  of  Christ  and  His 
'  work,  and  by  reason  of  that  alone,  that  death's  darkness  is  made 
beautiful,  and  death's  grimness  is  softened  down  to  this.  Now,  in  order  to 
grasp  the  full  meaning  of  such  words  as  these  of  the  Apostle,  we  must 
draw  a  broad  distinction  between  the  physical  fact  of  the  ending  of  cor- 
poreal life  and  the  mental  condition  which  is  associated  with  it  by  us. 
What  we  call  death,  if  I  may  so  say,  is  a  complex  thing — bodily  phenomenon 
^hts  conscience  ;  the  sense  of  sin,  the  certainty  of  retribution  in  the  dim 
beyond.  And  you  have  to  take  these  two  apart.  The  former  remains ; 
but  if  the  other  is  removed,  the  whole  has  changed  its  character,  and  is 
become  another  thing,  and  a  very  little  thing.  The  death  of  Jesus  Christ 
takes  all  the — I  was  going  to  say  the  nimbus  of  apprehension  and  dread 
arising  from  conscience  and  sin,  and  the  forecast  of  retribution — takes  all 
that  away.  There  is  nothing  left  for  us  to  face  except  the  physical  fact ; 
and  any  poor  soldier,  with  a  coarse  red  coat  upon  him,  will  face  that  for 
eighteenpence  a  day,  and  think  himself  well  paid.  Jesus  Christ  has 
abolished  death,  leaving  the  mere  shell,  but  taking  all  the  substance  out 
of  it.  It  has  become  a  different  thing  to  men,  because  in  that  death  of 
His  He  has  exhausted  the  bitterness,  and  has  made  it  possible  that  we 
should  pass  into  the  shadow,  and  not  fear  either  conscience  or  sin  or 
judgment. 

So,  dear  *'  brethren,  I  would  not  have  you  ignorant  concerning  them 
which  are  asleep,  that  ye  sorrow  not  even  as  others  which  have  no  hope." 
And  I  would  have  you  to  remember  tliat  whilst  Christ  by  His  work  has 
made  it  possible  that  the  terror  may  pass  away,  and  death  may  be  softened 
and  minimised  into  slumber,  it  will  not  be  so  with  you — unless  you  are 
joined  to  Him,  and  by  trust  in  the  power  of  His  death,  and  the  overflowing 
might  of  His  resurrection,  have  made  sure  that  what  He  has  passed 
through,  you  will  pass  through,  and  where  He  is,  and  what  He  is,  you 
will  be  also. 

Two  men  die  by  one  railway  accident,  sitting  side  by  side  upon  one 
seat,  smashed  in  one  collision.  But  though  the  outward  fact  is  the  same 
about  each,  the  reality  of  their  deaths  is  infinitely  different.  The  one  falls 
asleep  through  Jesus,  in  Jesus ;  the  other  dies  indeed,  and  the  death  of  his 
body  is  only  a  feeble  shadow  of  the  death  of  the  spirit.  Do  you  knit 
yourself  to  the  Life,  which  is  Christ,  and,  then,  "He  that  believeth  on  Me 
shall  never  die  ! " 

100 


REST   AND   CONSCIOUSNESS. 

As  for  me,  I  shall  behold  Thy  face  in  righteousness  :  I  shall  be  satisfiea^ 
when  I  awake ^  with  Tlty  likeness. — PsALM  xvii.  15, 

The  "sleeper  in  Christ"  is  not  unconscious.     He  is  parted 

^  *  from  the  outer  world  ;  he  is  unaware  of  externals.  When 
Stephen  knelt  below  the  old  wall,  and  was  surrounded  by  howling  fanatics 
that  slew  him,  one  moment  he  was  gashed  with  stones  and  tortured,  and 
the  next  "  he  fell  on  sleep."  They  might  howl,  and  the  stones  fly  as 
they  would,  and  he  was  all  unaware  of  it.  Like  Jonah  sleeping  in  the 
hold,  what  mattered  the  howling  of  the  storm  to  him  ?  But  separation 
from  externals  does  not  mean  suspense  of  life  or  of  consciousness  ;  and  the 
slumberer  often  dreams,  and  is  aware  of  himself  persistently  throughout 
his  slumber.  Nay  !  some  of  his  faculties  are  set  at  liberty  to  work  more 
energetically  because  his  connection  with  the  outer  world  is  for  the  time 
suspended. 

Scripture,  as  it  seems  to  me,  distinctly  carries  this  limitation  of  the 
emblem.  For  what  does  it  mean  when  the  Apostle  says,  "to  depart 
.  .  .  to  be  with  Christ  is  far  better "  ?  Surely  he  that  thus  spoke 
conceived  that  these  two  things  were  contemporaneous,  "  the  departing 
and  the  being  with  Him."  And  surely  he  who  thus  spoke  could  not  have 
conceived  that  a  millennium-long  parenthesis  of  slumberous  unconsciousness 
was  to  intervene  l)etween  the  moment  of  his  decease  and  the  moment  of 
his  fellowship  with  Jesus.  How  could  a  man  prefer  that  dormant  state 
to  the  state  here,  of  working  for  and  living  with  the  Lord  ?  Surely,  being 
with  Him  must  mean  that  we  know  where  we  are  and  who  is  our 
companion. 

And  what  does  that  text  mean,  "  Ye  are  come  unto  the  spirits  of  just 
men  made  perfect,"'  unless  it  means  that  of  ihese  two  classes  of  persons 
who  are  thus  regarded  as  brought  into  living  fellowship,  each  is  aware  of 
the  other?  Does  perfecting  of  the  spirit  mean  the  smiting  of  the  spirit 
into  unconsciousness?  Surely  not,  and  surely  in  the  face  of  such  words 
as  these  we  must  recognise  the  fact  that,  however  limited  and  imperfect 
may  be  the  present  connection  with  the  disembodied  dead,  who  sleep  in 
Christ,  with  external  things — they  know  themselves,  they  know  their 
home  and  their  companions,  and  they  know  the  blessedness  in  which  they 
are  lapped. 

We  have  also  the  idea  01  awaking.  The  pagans  said,  as  indeed  one  of 
their  poets  has  it,  "Suns  can  sink  and  return,  but  for  us,  when  our  brief 
light  sinks,  there  is  but  one  perpetual  night  of  slumber."  The  Christian 
idea  of  death  is  that  it  is  transitory  as  a  sleep  in  the  morning,  and  sure 
to  end.  As  St.  Augustine  says  somewhere,  "Wherefore  are  they  called 
sleepers  but  because  in  the  day  of  the  Lord  they  will  be  re-awakened." 

lOI 


*'THEM  THAT  SLEEP." 

So  He  giveth  unto  His  beloved  sleep. — Psalm  cxxvii.  2. 

Sweetest,  deepest,  most  appealing  to  all  our  hearts  is  that 

^        '    emblem  of  death,   "Them  that  sleep."     It  is  used,  if  I  count 

rightly,  some  fourteen  times  in  the  New  Testament,  and  it  carries  with  it 

large  and  plain  lessons,  on  which  I  touch  but  for  a  moment.     "What,  then, 

does  this  metaphor  say  to  us  ? 

Well,  it  speaks  first  of  rest.  That  is  not  altogether  an  attractive  con- 
ception to  some  of  us.  If  it  be  taken  exclusively,  it  is  by  no  means  whole- 
some. I  suppose  that  the  young,  and  the  strong,  and  the  eager,  and  the 
ambitious,  and  the  prosperous  rather  shrink  from  the  notion  of  their 
activities  being  stiffened  into  slumber.  But,  dear  friend,  there  are  some 
of  us,  like  tired  children  in  a  fair,  who  would  fain  have  done  with  the 
weariness,  who  have  made  experience  of  the  distractions  and  bewildering 
changes,  whose  backs  are  stiffened  with  toil,  whose  hearts  are  heavy  with 
loss.  And  to  all  of  us,  in  some  moods,  the  prospect  of  shuffling  off  this 
weary  coil  of  responsibilities  and  duties,  and  tasks  and  sorrows,  and  of 
passing  into  indisturbance  and  repose,  appeals.  I  believe,  for  my  part, 
that  after  all  the  deepest  longing  of  men,  though  they  search  for  it  through 
toil  and  effort,  the  deepest  longing  is  for  repose.  As  the  poet  has  taught 
us,  **  there  is  no  joy  but  calm."  Every  heart  is  weary  enough,  and  heavy 
laden,  and  labouring  enough,  to  feel  the  sweetness  of  a  promise  of  rest — 

"Sleep,  full  of  rest  from  head  to  foot, 
Lie  still,  dry  dust,  secure  of  change." 

Yes  1  But  the  rest  of  which  our  emblem  speaks  is,  as  I  believe,  only 
applicable  to  the  bodily  frame.  The  word  "  sleep"  is  a  transcript  of  what 
sense  enlightened  by  faith  sees  in  that  still  form,  with  the  folded  hands  and 
the  quiet  face  and  the  closed  eyes.  But  let  us  remember  that  this  repose, 
deep  and  blessed  as  it  is,  is  not,  as  some  would  say,  the  repose  of  uncon- 
sciousness. I  do  not  believe,  and  I  would  have  you  not  believe,  that  this 
emblem  touches  the  vigorous  spiritual  life,  or  that  the  passage  from  out  of 
the  toil  and  moil  of  earth  into  the  calm  of  the  darkness  beyond  has  any 
power  in  limiting  or  suspending  the  vital  force  of  the  man. 

1 02 


THE  SLEEP  OF  DEATH. 

Our  friend  Lazarus  is  fallen  asleep;  but  I  go,  that  I  tnay  awake  him 
out  of  sleep. — ^JOHN  xi.  ii. 

It  is  to  Jesus  primarily  that  the  New  Testament  writers  owe 
^^  '  their  use  of  this  gracious  emblem  of  sleep.  For,  as  you  remem- 
ber, the  word  was  twice  upon  our  Lord's  lips ;  once  when,  over  the  twelve- 
years-old  maid,  from  whom  life  had  barely  ebbed  away,  he  said,  "She  is 
not  dead,  but  sleepeth"  ;  and  once  when,  in  regard  of  the  man  Lazarus, 
from  whom  life  had  removed  furthei*,  he  said,  "  Our  friend  sleepeth,  but 
I  go  that  I  may  awake  him  out  of  his  sleep."  But  Jesus  was  not  the 
originator  of  the  expression.  You  find  it  in  the  Old  Testament,  where  the 
prophet  Daniel,  speaking  of  the  end  of  the  days  and  the  bodily  resurrection, 
designates  those  who  share  in  it  as  "  them  that  sleep  in  the  dust  of  the 
earth."  And  the  Old  Testament  was  not  the  sole  origin  of  the  phrase. 
For  it  is  too  natural,  too  much  in  accordance  with  the  visibilities  of  death, 
not  to  have  suggested  itself  to  many  hearts  and  been  shrined  in  many 
tongues.  Many  an  inscription  of  Greek  and  Roman  date  speaks  sadly  of 
death  under  this  figure.  But  almost  alvrays  it  is  with  the  added,  deepened 
note  of  despair,  that  it  is  a  sleep  which  knows  no  waking,  but  lasts  through 
eternal  night. 

Now,  the  Christian  thought  associated  with  this  emblem  is  the  precise 
opposite  of  the  pagan  one.  The  pagan  heart  shrank  from  the  ugly  thing 
because  it  was  so  ugly.  So  dark  and  deep  a  dread  coiled  round  the  man 
as  he  contemplated  it  that  he  sought  to  drape  the.grimness  in  some  kind 
of  thin  transparent  veil,  and  to  put  the  buffer  of  a  word  between  him  and 
its  ugliness.  But  the  Christian's  motive  for  the  use  of  the  word  is  the 
precise  opposite.  He  uses  the  gentler  expression  because  the  thing  has 
become  gentler. 

You  find  one  class  of  representations  in  the  New  Testament  which 
speak  of  death  as  being  a  departing  and  a  being  with  Christ ;  or  which  call 
it,  as  one  of  the  Apostles  does,  an  "exodus,"  where  it  is  softened  down 
to  be  merely  a  change  of  environment,  a  change  of  locality.  Then  another 
class  of  representations  speak  of  it  as  "putting  off  this  my  tabernacle,"  or, 
the  dissolution  of  the  "  earthly  house" — where  there  is  a  broad,  firm  line 
of  demarcation  drawn  between  the  inhabitant  and  the  habitation,  and  the 
thing  is  softened  down  to  be  a  mere  change  of  dwelling.  Again,  another 
class  of  expressions  speak  of  it  as  being  an  "offering,"  where  the  main 
idea  is  that  of  a  voluntary  surrender,  a  sacrifice  or  libation  of  myself,  and 
my  life  poured  out  upon  the  altar  of  God. 

103 


A  LOVE  THAT  SHRINKS  FROM  NO  SACRH-ICE. 

He  that  spared  not  His  own  Son,  but  delivered  Him  up  for  us  all,  how 
shall  He  not  also  with  Him  freely  give  us  ail  things  ? — RoM.  viii.  32. 

I  CANNOT  venture  to  use  words  of  my  own  about  such  a  subject, 
April  13.  ^  ,     ,  , 

but  I  read  in  this  very  Epistle  (Romans)  of  a  wonderful  com- 

paason,  which  to  me  is  most  beautiful  and  most  instructive,  and  wakens 
thoughts  that  are  perhaps  too  blessed  and  too  mystic  to  be  put  into  words, 
when  I  read,  *'  He  that  spared  not  His  own  Son,  but  freely  delivered  Him 
up  to  the  death  for  us  all "  ;  and  recognise  there  an  allusive  reference  to 
that  old  story,  surely  the  most  pathetic  in  the  pages  of  the  Old  Testament 
history,  of  the  father  and  son  going  up  the  mountain  side  together  to  the 
mysterious   sacrifice,    and   of  the  sorrow  that   passed   over   the  heart  of 
Abraham  when  he  had  to  give  up  Isaac  at  the  command  of  the  Divine 
voice.     Some  shadow  of  what  men  call  "  giving  up  "  and  "  loss  "  may  be 
conceived  to  have  passed  across  the  mirror  of  the  Divine  experience  when 
Christ  died.     I  know  not  ;  I  dare  not  speak  about  such  things,  but  I  do 
say  that  Christ's  Cross  preaches  to  you  and  me  of  a  love  on  the  part  of  our 
Father  God  which  shrinks  from  no  sacrifices.     "  He  so  loved  the  world 
that  He  gave  up  His  only  begotten  Son."     That  Cross  proves  to  you  and 
presses   upon   you   a   love  which    wants   nothing   but   your   love  ;  which 
hungers,  if  I  may  so  say,  for  the  return  of  your  love  and  of  your  thank- 
fulness.      A  great    poet   of  our  own   generation  has  described,   with  an 
allowable  boldness,   God  as  sitting  amidst  His  angels,  praising  Him  as 
with  voice  of  many  thunders,  and  of  harpers  with  their  harps,  and  saying 
about  one  poor  man's  voice  that  had  for  awhile  become  silent,   '*!  miss 
my  little  human  praise."     It  is  true.      He  wants  your  love.     **  The  P'ather 
seeketh,"  said  Christ— how  strange  and  beautiful !— "  the  Father  seeketh 
such  to  worship  Him."     "My  son,  give  Me  thine  heart,"  is  the  inmost 
meaning  of  Christ's  Cross.     Yield  your  love  to  Him,  and  then  your  Father 
will  say  as  you  come  back,  "  It  was  meet  that  we  should  be  glad,  for  this 
My  son  was  dead,  and  is  alive  again." 

104 


GOD'S    LOVE    DExMONSTllATED. 

Herein  was  the  love  of  God  manifested  in  us,  that  God  hath  sent  His 
only  begotten  Son  into  the  world,  that  we  might  live  through  Hitn. — 
I  John  iv.  9. 

What  is  the  connection  between  God's  love  and  Christ's 
death  ?  How  does  any,  even  the  extremest,  love  and  regard 
and  self-sacrifice  on  the  part  of  Jesus, — how  does  that  demonstrate  God's 
love  ?  Is  it  not  obvious  that  we  must  conceive  the  relation  between  God 
and  Christ  to  be  singularly  close  in  order  that  Christ's  death  should  prove 
God's  love  ? 

Suppose  it  had  been  said,  *' Paul's  death  proves  the  love  of  God"? — 
there  would  have  been  no  probative  force  in  that  fact.  But  when  we 
read  "  Christ's  death  proves  it,"  I  would  press  this  question  :  Does  the 
assertion  hold  water,  and  is  there  any  common  sense  in  it  at  all  except 
upon  one  supposition — that  the  man  who  said  that  God's  love  was  proved 
by  Christ's  propitiatory  death  believed  that  the  heart  of  Christ  was  the 
revelation  of  the  heart  of  God  ;  and  that  what  Christ  did,  God  did  in  His 
well-beloved  Son  ? 

If  you  believe,  as  I  believe,  that  Jesus  Christ  was  God  manifest  in  the 
flesh,  then  it  is  reasonable  to  say,  "  God  commendeth  His  own  love  to  us 
in  that  Christ  died  for  us. "' 

Let  us  remember,  too,  that  God's  love  is  all-embracing,  because  it 
embraces  each.  It  can  only  be  true  that  Christ  died  for  us  all  if  every  man 
on  earth  has  a  right  to  say,  "Christ  died  for  me.'* 

That  is  what  I  pray  you  to  do.  Do  not  take  shelter  in  the  crowd. 
God  does  not  deal  with  men  in  a  crowd.  And  Christ's  death  was  not  for 
men  in  a  crowd  ;  it  was  not  for  the  abstraction  "  humanity,"  "  the  world," 
"  the  race  "  ;  it  was  for  men,  one  by  one,  each  singly,  as  if  there  had  not 
been  another  human  being  in  existence  except  just  that  one.  I  believe 
that  we  were  all  in  Christ's  heart,  all  in  His  purpose,  when  He  gave  Him- 
self up  to  the  death  for  us  all ;  and  that,  therefore,  His  cross, — on  which 
He  died  that  you  and  I,  and  all  of  us,  might  live  ;  on  which  He  yielded 
Himself  up  to  the  outward  penalty  of  sin  in  order  that  none  of  its  inward 
penalty  might  ever  fall  upon  them  that  trust  in  Him, — is  the  manifestation 
of  the  love  of  God  to  the  whole  world  ;  because  Christ's  death  embraced 
in  its  purpose  the  whole  world,  and  every  unit  that  is  in  it,  and,  therefore, 
thee,  and  thee,  and  thee,  my  brother  !     Do  you  believe  that  ? 

105 


ALL   TRUTH    BASED   UPON   CilRISTIANITV. 

Every  good  gift  and  every  perfect  boon  is  from  above,  coming  down  from 
the  Father  of  lights,  with  whom  can  be  no  variation,  neither  shadow  that  is 
cast  by  turning. — ^James  i.    IJ. 

There  never  was,  and  there  is  not,  any  religion  untouched  by 
Christianity  that  has  any  firm  grip  of  that  truth,  "God  is  Love." 
There  have  been  all  kinds  of  deities  in  the  world,  outside  the  limits  of  the 
circle  in  which  the  influence  of  the  Gospel  has  been  felt.  You  have  had 
cruel,  capricious,  good-natured,  savage,  vicious,  revengeful,  and  impure 
deities.  You  have  had  the  deification  of  lust  and  passion  and  favouritism 
and  caprice,  as  well  as  of  lofty  and  pure  things  ;  but  there  is  no  God  of 
Love  anywhere  that  ever  I  heard  of,  except  where  some  faint  rays  of 
Christianity  and  its  blessed  message  have  come.  And  the  people  thai 
now-a-days  are  kicking  down  the  ladder  by  which  they  have  climbed,  and, 
in  the  name  of  this  conviction  which  they  owe  to  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ, 
are  turning  round  and  rejecting  that  Gospel,  are  committing  intellectual 
suicide,  and  strike  away  the  very  basis  upon  which  the  truth  that  they 
value  so  much  rests.  The  fact  remains  that  men  have  never  been  able  to 
raise  themselves  up  to,  and  maintain  themselves  at,  the  lofty  level  of  the 
lofty  belief  that  God  is  Love,  when  they  have  turned  their  backs  on  the 
Cross  of  Jesus  Christ.     Let  history  answer  if  they  have  ! 

I  believe  that  the  course  of  thought  in  cultivated  Europe  is  coming  to 
this  plain  alternative, — that  a  mere  bare  theism  cannot  keep  its  hold,  and 
that  the  choice  is  between  Christ  and  His  Cross  on  the  one  hand,  and 
blank  disbelief  in  the  love  of  God,  and  in  God  at  all,  on  the  other.  These 
two  will  divide  the  field.  There  will  either  be  a  happy,  calm,  triumphant 
hold  of  God's  love  manifest  in  Jesus  Christ,  or  there  will  be  a  despairing 
sense  that  we  walk  in  darkness  as  orphan  creatures  here,  knowing  not 
whether  we  have  a  Father  and  a  home. 

Oh,  dear  brother  !  our  own  conscience  may  tell  us,  and  the  world's 
history  may  tell  us,  and  men-made  religions  may  tell  us,  that  it  is  not  an 
easy  thing  for  a  man  to  say,  nor  to  believe  in  his  heart,  that  God  is  Love. 

And  when  God's  love  is  proved,  it  needs  to  be  pressed  upon  us  ;  does  it 
not  ?  How  we  all  forget  it,  and  turn  away  from  it,  are  careless  about  il  ; 
oppose  ice  to  His  flame,  selfishness  to  His  love,  indifference  to  His  plead- 
ings !  Do  not  you,  dear  brother?  Do  we  not  need  something  that  shall 
touch  our  hearts,  and  shall  press  upon  us,  as  well  as  prove  to  us,  the  endless 
love  of  our  Father  God  ?     I  think  we  do. 

1 06 


THE  DIVINE  REDEEMER. 

God  so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His  only  begotten  Sort,  that  whoso- 
ever believeth  in  Him  should  not  perish  ^  but  have  eternal  life. — ^JOHN  iii.  i6. 

Christ's  death  proves  God's  love,  because  Christ  is  Divine. 
April  16. 

IIow  else  do  you  account  for  that  extraordinary  shifting  of  the 

persons  in  these  words  of  Paul,   "  God  commendeth  His  own  love  to  us,  in 

that,  while  we  were  yet  sinners,  Christ  died  for  us  "  ?     God  proves  His  love 

because  Christ  died  ?     How  so  ?     God  proved  His  love  because  Socrates 

died  ?     God  proved  His   love   because   some  self-sacrificing   doctor  went 

into  a  hospital,  and  died  in  curing  others  ?     God  proved  His  love  because 

some  man  sprang  into  the  sea  and  rescued  a  drowning  woman,  at  the  cost 

of  his  own  life  ?     Would  such  talk  hold  ?     Then  I  want  to  know  how  it 

comes  that  Paul  ventures  to  say  that  God  proved  His  love  because  Jesus 

Christ  died? 

Unless  we  believe  that  Jesus  Christ  is  the  Eternal  Son  of  the  Father, 
whom  the  Father  sent,  and  who  willingly  came  for  us  men  and  for  our 
redemption  ;  unless  we  believe  that  in  Him  dwelt  all  the  fulness  of  the 
Godhead  bodily;  unless  we  believe  that,  as  He  Himself  said,  "He  that 
hath  seen  Me  hath  seen  the  Father  " ;  unless  we  believe  that  His  death 
was  the  act,  the  consequence,  and  the  revelation  of  the  love  of  God,  who 
dwelt  in  Him  as  in  none  other  of  the  sons  of  men,  I,  for  one,  venture  to 
think  that  Paul  is  talking  nonsense,  and  that  his  argument  is  not  worth 
a  straw.  You  must  come  to  the  full-toned  belief  which,  as  I  think,  per- 
meates and  binds  together  every  page  of  the  New  Testament — God  so 
loved  the  world,  and  sent  His  Son  to  be  the  propitiation  for  our  sins ;  that 
Son  who  in  the  beginning  was  with  God,  and  was  God.  And  then  a  flood 
of  light  is  poured  on  the  words  of  Paul,  and  we  can  adoringly  bow  the 
head  and  say  "  Amen  !  God  hath  to  my  understanding,  and  to  my  heart, 
proved  and  commended  His  love,  in  that  Christ  died  for  us  ! " 

The  death  on  the  Cross  was  on  our  behalf,  therefore  it  was  the  spon- 
taneous outgush  of  an  infinite  love.  It  was  for  us,  in  that  it  brought  an 
infinite  benefit.  And  so  it  was  a  token  and  a  manifestation  of  the  love 
of  God  such  as  nothing  else  could  be. 

107 


GOD   PROVES   HIS   OWN    LOVE. 

Herein  is  love,  not  that  we  loved  God,  but  that  He  oved  us,  and  sent  His 
Son  to  be  the  propiiiation  for  our  sins. —  I  JOHN  iv.  lo. 

.. ,_  Let  us  think  for  a  moment  of  the  fact  which  is  thus  the  demon- 
Apnl  17.  5j.j.j^tJQjj  Qf  the  love  of  God,  and  try  to  reahse  what  it  is  that  that 
Cross  says  to  us,  as  we  gaze  upon  the  silent  Sufferer  meekly  hanging  there. 
I  know  that  my  words  must  fall  far  beneath  the  theme,  but  I  can  only  hope 
that  you  will  read  them  charitably,  and  try  to  better  them  for  yourselves  in 
your  own  thoughts. 

I  look,  then,  to  the  dying  Christ,  and  I  see  there  the  revelation,  because 
the  consequence,  of  a  love  which  is  not  called  forth  by  any  loveableness  on 
the  part  of  its  objects.  The  Apostle  emphasises  that  thought,  if  we  render 
liis  words  fully,  because  he  says,  "God  proves  His  oivn  love" — a  love 
which,  like  all  that  belongs  to  that  timeless,  self-deiermining  Being,  has 
its  reason  and  its  roots  in  Himself  alone  !  We  love  because  we  discern  the 
object  to  be  loveable.  God  loves  by  what  I  may  venture  to  call  the  very 
necessity  of  His  nature.  Like  some  artesian  well  that  needs  no  pumps 
nor  machinery  to  draw  up  the  sparkling  waters  to  flash  in  the  sunlight, 
there  gushes  up  from  the  depths  of  His  own  heart  the  love  which  pours 
over  every  creature  that  He  has  made.     He  loves  because  He  is  God. 

It  is  only  the  Gospel  of  a  dying  Christ  that  can  calm  the  reasonable 
consciousness  of  discord  and  antagonism  that  springs  in  a  man's  heart  when 
he  lets  his  conscience  speak.  It  is  because  He  died  for  us  that  we  are  sure 
now  that  the  black  mountain-wall  of  our  sin,  which,  to  our  own  apprehen- 
sion, rises  separating  between  us  and  our  God,  is,  if  I  may  so  say,  surged 
over  by  the  rising  flood  of  His  love.  The  Cross  of  Christ  teaches  me  that, 
and  so  it  is  the  Gospel  for  men  that  know  themselves  to  be  sinners.  Is 
there  anything  else  that  teaches  it  ?     I  know  not  where  it  is,  if  there  be. 

That  dying  Christ,  hanging  there,  in  the  silence  and  the  darkness  of 
eclipse,  speaks  to  me,  too,  of  a  Divine  love  which,  though  not  turned  away 
by  man's  sin,  is  rigidly  righteous.  There  is  a  current  easy-going  religion 
which  says,  "Oh!  we  do  not  want  any  of  your  Evangelical  contrivances 
for  forgiveness.  God  is  Love.  That  is  enough  for  us."  I  venture  to  say 
that  the  thing  which  that  form  of  thought  calls  love  is  not  love  at  all,  but 
pure  weakness  ;  such  as  in  a  king  or  in  a  father  would  be  immoral.  It  is 
not  otherwise  in  God.  My  brother  !  unless  you  can  find  some  means 
v/hereby  the  infinite  love  of  God  can  get  at  and  soothe  the  sinner's  heart 
without  perilling  God's  righteousness,  you  have  done  nothing  to  the  purpose. 
Such  a  one-eyed,  lop-sided  gospel  will  never  work,  has  not  worked,  and  it 
never  will.  But,  when  I  think  of  my  Christ  bearing  the  sins  of  the  world, 
I  say  to  myself,  "  Herein  is  love.  By  His  stripes  we  are  healed,"  and  in 
Him  love  and  righteousness  are  both  crowned  as  distinctive  attributes  in 
harmonious  oneness.  Is  there  anything  else  that  will  do  that  ?  If  there 
be,  I,  for  one,  know  not  what  it  is. 

loS 


A  BREVIARY   OF    CHRISTIAN   GRACES. 

Add  on  your  part  all  diligence,  in  your  faith  supply  virtue,  and  in  your 
virtue  knowledge^  and  in  your  knowledge  tetnperance,  and  in  your  temperance 
patience,  and  in  your  patience  godliness,  and  in  your  godliness  love  of  the 
brethren,  and  in  your  love  of  the  brethren  love. — 2  Peter  i.  5,  6,  7. 

All  the  excellences  which  precede  godliness  are  of  the  sterner, 
^  '  the  more  severe,  and  self-regarding  kind,  and  those  which 
follow  it  are  of  the  gentler  sort,  and  refer  to  others.  Before  it  stand 
strength,  discrimination,  self-control,  patience,  all  having  reference  to 
myself  alone,  and  mainly  to  the  difficulties  and  antagonisms  which  I  meet 
with  in  life.  There  follow  it  "brotherly  kindness  and  charity"  ;  having 
reference  to  others,  and  being  gentle  and  sweet.  If  I  might  so  say,  it  is 
as  in  some  Alpine  range,  where  the  side  that  faces  the  north  presents 
rugged  cliffs  and  sparse  vegetation,  and  close-knit  strength  to  breast  the 
tempest,  and  to  live  amidst  the  snows  ;  whilst  the  southern  side  has  gentler 
slopes,  and  a  more  fertile  soil,  a  richer  vegetation,  and  a  sunnier  sky.  So 
here  :  on  the  one  side  you  get  these  severe  and  self- regarding  graces,  fronting 
a  world  full  of  antagonism  and  evil ;  and  on  the  other  side  you  get  the 
gentler  graces,  fronting  a  world  full  of  men  that  need  care  and  help ;  whilst 
above  them  all  towers  the  great  summit  that  points  to  the  stars,  and  lives 
up  amongst  the  blue,  from  which  flow  down  on  the  one  side  the  streams  of 
love  and  pity,  and  on  the  other  run  down  the  cliffs  that  front  the  stormy 
north.  In  the  beginning  faith  ;  at  the  end  love  ;  in  the  centre  godliness ; 
which  will  blend  into  one  harmonious  whole  the  virtues  of  strength  and 
of  gentleness,  even  as  the  type  and  example  of  both  are  found  in  the  Christ 
of  whom  long  ago  it  was  said:  "He  shall  come  with  a  strong  hand; 
.  .  .  and  shall  carry  the  lambs  in  His  bosom,  and  gently  lead  those 
that  are  with  young." 

And  in  like  manner,  the  great  difficult  problem  of  how  far  I  am  to 
carry  my  own  cultivation  of  Christian  excellence  apart  from  regard  to  others, 
and  how  far  I  am  to  let  my  obligations  to  help  and  succour  others  over- 
come the  necessity  for  individual  cultivation  of  Christian  character  ;  that 
difficulty  which  presses  practically  upon  some  of  us  with  great  force  is  best 
solved  as  Peter  solves  il  here.  Put  godliness  in  the  middle,  let  that  be 
the  centre,  and  from  it  will  flow  on  the  one  sid^  all  needful  self-discipline 
and  tutoring,  and  on  the  other  all  wise  and  Christlike  regard  to  the  needs 
and  the  sorrows  of  the  men  around  us. 

109 


TRUE   GREATNESS. 
He  shall  be  great  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord. — Luke  i.  15. 

So  spake  the  angel  who  foretold  the  birth  of  John  the  Baptist. 
April  19. 

*'  In  the  sight  of  the  Lord.       Then  men  are  not  on  a  dead  level 

in    His   eyes.     Though    He  is  so  high  and  we  are  so  low,   the  country 

beneath  Him  that  He  looks  down  upon  is  not  flattened  to  Him,  as  it  is  to 

us  from  an  elevation,  but  there  are  greater  and  smaller  men  in  His  sight, 

too.     No  epithet  is  more  misused  and  misapplied  than  that  of  "a  great 

man."     It  is  flung  about  as  indiscriminately  as  ribbons  and  orders  are  by 

some  petty  state.     Every  little  man  that  makes  a  noise  for  awhile  gets  it 

hung  round  his  neck.     Think  what  a  set  they  are  that  are  gathered  in  the 

world's  Valhalla,  and  honoured  as  the  world's  great  men  1     The  mass  of 

people  are  so  much  on  a  level,  and  that  level  is  so  low  that  an  inch  above 

the  average  looks  gigantic.     But  the  tallest  blade  of  grass  gets  mown  down 

by  the  scythe,  and  withers  as  quickly  as  the  rest  of  its  green  companions, 

and  goes   its  way   into   the   oven  as  surely.     There  is  the  world's  false 

estimate  of  greatness  and  there  is  God's  estimate.      If  we  want  to  know 

what  the  elements  of  true  greatness  are,   we   may  well  turn  to  the  life 

of  this  man,  of  whom  the  prophecy  went  before  him,  that  he  should  be 

**  great  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord."     That  is  gold  that  will  stand  the  test. 

We  may  remember,  too,  that  Jesus  Christ,  looking  back  on  the  career  to 
which  the  angel  was  looking  forward,  endorsed  the  prophecy,  and  declared 
that  it  had  become  a  fact,  and  that  "  of  them  that  were  born  of  woman 
there  had  not  arisen  a  greater  than  John  the  Baptist."  There  is  no  char- 
acteristic which  may  not  be  attained  by  any  man,  woman,  or  child  amongst 
us.  **The  least  in  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven"  may  be  greater  than  he. 
It  is  a  poor  ambition  to  seek  to  be  called  "  great."  It  is  a  noble  desire  to 
be  *'  great  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord."  And  if  we  will  keep  ourselves 
close  to  Jesus  Christ  that  will  be  attained.  It  will  matter  very  little  what 
men  think  of  us  if  at  last  we  have  praise  from  the  lips  of  Him  who  poured 
such  praise  on  His  servant.  We  may,  if  we  will.  And  then  it  will  not 
hurt  us  though  our  names  on  earth  be  dark,  and  our  memories  perish  from 
among  men. 

*'0f  so  much  fame  in  Heaven  expect  thy  meed." 

no 


COURAGE   UNWAVERING  AND   IMMOVEABLE. 

What  went  ye  out  into  the  wilderness  to  behold  ?  A  reed  shaken  with 
the  wind  ? — Luke  vii.  24. 

"What   went  ve  out  into  the  wilderness  for  to  see?  a  reed 
April  20.  ^ 

shaken  with  the  wind  ? "     Nay  !  an  iron  pillar  that  stood  firm 

whatsoever  winds  blew  against  it.     This,  as  I  take  it,  is  in  some  true  sense 

the  basis  of  all  moral  greatness,  that  a  man  should   have  a  grip  which 

cannot  be  loosened — like  that  of  the  cuttlefish  with  all  its  tentacles  round 

its  prey— upon  the  truths  that  dominate  his  being  and  make  him  a  hero. 

**If  you  want  me  to  weep,"  said  the  old  artist-poet,  "  there  must  be  tears 

in  your  own   eyes."     If  you  want  me  to  believe,   you  yourself  must  be 

aflame  with  conviction  which  has  penetrated  to  the  very  marrow  of  your 

bones.     And  so,   as  I  take  it,  the  first  requisite,   either  for  power  upon 

others,  or  for  greatness,  in  a  man's  own  development  of  character,  is  that 

there  shall  be  this  unwavering  firmness  of  grasp  of  clearly-apprehended 

truths,  and  unflinching  boldness  of  devotion  to  it. 

No  doubt  there  is  much  to  be  laid  to  the  account  of  temperament ;  but 
whatever  their  temperament  may  be,  the  way  to  this  unwavering  courage, 
and  firm,  clear  ring  of  indubitable  certainty,  is  open  to  every  Christian  man 
and  woman  ;  and  it  is  their  own  fault,  their  own  sin  and  their  own  weakness, 
if  they  do  not  possess  these  qualities.  Temperament  1  What  on  earth  is 
the  good  of  our  religion  if  it  is  not  to  modify  and  govern  our  temperament  ? 
Has  a  man  a  right  to  jib  on  one  side,  and  give  up  the  attempt  to  clear  the 
fence,  because  he  feels  that  in  his  own  natural  disposition  there  is  little 
power  to  take  the  leap  ?  Surely  not  !  Jesus  Christ  came  here  for  the  very 
purpose  of  making  our  weakness  strong  ;  and  if  we  have  a  firm  bold  upon 
Him,  then,  in  the  measure  in  which  His  love  has  permeated  our  whole 
nature,  will  be  our  unwavering  courage,  and  out  of  weakness  we  shall  be 
made  strong. 

Then  let  our  closeness  to  Jesus  Christ,  and  our  experience  of  His  power, 
kindle  in  us  the  fiery  enthusiasm  with  which  He  baptizes  all  His  true 
servants,  and  let  it,  because  we  know  the  sweetnesses  that  excel,  deprive  us 
of  all  liability  to  be  tempted  away  by  the  vulgar  and  coarse  delights  of 
earth  and  of  sense.  Let  us  keep  ourselves  clear  of  the  babble  that  is 
round  about  us,  and  be  strong  because  we  grasp  Christ's  hand. 

Ill 


THE    HIGHEST    TYPE    OF    COURAGE. 

And  when  they  beheld  the  boldness  of  Peter  and  John,  and  had  perceived 
that  they  were  unlearned  and  ignorant  men,  they  niarveUed,  and  they  took 
knowledge  of  them,  that  they  had  been  with  Jesus. — ^AcTS  iv.   13. 

Moral  characteristics  do  not  reach  a  climax  unless  there  has 
been  much  underground  building  to  bear  the  lofty  pinnacle. 
And  no  man,  when  great  occasions  come  to  him,  develops  a  courage  and 
an  unwavering  confidence  which  are  strange  to  his  habitual  life.  There 
must  be  the  underground  building ;  and  there  must  have  been  many  a 
fighting  down  of  fears,  many  a  curbing  of  tremors,  many  a  rebuke  of 
hesitations  and  doubts  in  the  gaunt,  desert-loving  prophet,  before  he  was 
man  enough  to  stand  before  Herod  and  say,  "It  is  not  lawful  for  thee  to 
have  her." 

Of  course,  the  highest  type  of  this  undaunted  boldness  and  unwavering 
firmness  of  conviction  is  not  in  John  and  his  like.  He  presented  strength 
in  a  lower  form  than  did  the  Master  from  whom  his  strength  came.  The 
willow  has  a  place  as  well  as  the  oak.  Firmness  is  not  obstinacy  ;  courage 
is  not  rudeness.  It  is  possible  to  have  the  iron  hand  in  the  velvet  glove, 
not  of  etiquette — observing  politeness,  but  of  a  true  considerateness  and 
gentleness.  They  who  are  likest  Him  that  was  "  meek  and  lowly  m  heart" 
are  surest  to  possess  the  unflinching  resolve  which  set  His  face  like  a  flint, 
and  enabled  Him  to  go  unhesitatingly  and  unrecalcitrant  to  the  Cross 
itself. 

Do  not  let  us  forget,  either,  that  John's  unwavering  firmness  wavered  ; 
that  over  the  clear  heaven  of  his  convictions  there  did  steal  a  cloud  ;  that 
he  from  whom  no  violence  could  wrench  his  faith,  felt  it  slipping  out  of  his 
grasp  when  his  muscles  were  relaxed  in  the  dungeon  ;  and  that  he  sent 
"from  the  prison" — which  was  the  excuse  for  the  message — to  ask  the 
question,   "  After  all,  '  Art  Thou  He  that  should  come  ? ' " 

Nor  let  us  forget  that  it  was  that  very  moment  of  tremulousness  which 
Jesus  Christ  seized  in  order  to  pour  an  unstinted  flood  of  praise  for  the  firm- 
ness of  his  convictions  on  the  wavering  head  of  the  Forerunner.  So  if  we 
feel  that  though  the  needle  of  our  compass  points  true  to  the  pole,  yet  when 
the  compass  frame  is  shaken  the  needle  sometimes  vibrates  away  from  its 
true  goal,  do  not  let  us  be  cast  down,  but  believe  that  a  merciful  allow- 
ance is  made  for  human  weakness.  This  man  was  great  because  he  had 
such  dauntless  courage  and  firmness  that  over  his  headless  corpse  in  the 
dungeon  at  Machoerus  might  have  been  spoken  what  the  Regent  Murray 
said  over  John  Knox's  coffin,  "  Here  lies  one  that  never  feared  the  face 
of  man." 


EXALTATION    ABOVE   WORLDLY    GOOD. 

/  know  how  to  be  abased,  and  I  knoiv  also  how  to  abound  :  in  everything 
and  in  all  things  have  I  learned  the  secret  both  to  be  filled  and  to  be  hungry, 
both  to  abound  and  to  be  in  want.  I  can  do  all  things  in  Him  that 
strengtheneih  me. — Phil.  iv.    12,  13. 

"What  went  ye  out  into  the  wilderness  for  to  see?    A  man 

Anril  22 

clothed  in  soft  raiment?"  Ah!  you  would  have  gone  to  a 
palace  if  you  had  wanted  to  see  that,  not  to  the  reed-beds  of  Jordan.  As 
we  all  know,  in  his  life,  in  his  dress,  in  his  food,  in  the  aims  that  he  set 
before  him,  John  rose  high  above  all  regard  for  the  debasing  and  perishable 
sweetnesses  that  hold  of  flesh,  and  are  ended  in  time.  He  lived  con- 
spicuously for  the  Unseen.  His  asceticism,  which  belonged  to  his  age, 
was  not  the  highest  type  of  the  virtue  which  it  expressed.  As  the  might 
of  gentleness  is  greater  than  the  might  of  such  strength  as  John's,  so  the 
asceticism  of  John  is  lower  than  the  self-government  of  the  Man  that  comes 
eating  and  drinking. 

But  whilst  that  is  true,  I  seek  to  urge  this  old  threadbare  lesson,  always 
needed,  never  needed  more  than  amidst  the  senselessly  luxurious  habits 
of  this  generation,  that  one  indispensable  element  of  true  greatness  and 
elevation  of  character  is  that  every  one  of  us  should  live  high  above  these 
temptations  of  gross  and  perishable  joys  ;  should 

"  Scorn  delights  and  live  laborious  days." 

No  man  has  a  right  to  be  called  "great  "  if  his  aims  are  small.  And  the 
question  is,  not  as  modern  idolatry  of  intellect,  or,  still  worse,  modern 
idolatry  of  success,  often  makes  it  out  to  be,  has  he  great  capacities,  or, 
"  has  he  won  great  prizes,"  but  has  he  greatly  used  himself  and  his  life? 
If  your  aims  are  small,  you  will  never  be  great  ;  and  if  your  highest  aims 
are  but  to  get  a  good  slice  of  this  world's  pudding,  no  matter  what  powers 
God  may  have  given  you  to  use,  you  are  essentially  a  small  man. 

I  remember  a  vigorous  and  contemptuous  illustration  of  St.  Bernard's  : 
he  likens  a  man  that  lives  for  these  perishable  delights  which  John  spurned 
to  a  spider  spinning  a  web  out  of  his  own  substance,  and  catching  in  it 
nothing  but  a  wretched  prey  of  poor  little  flies.  Such  a  one  has  no  right 
to  be  called  a  great  man  surely  !  Our  aims  rather  than  our  capacity 
determine  our  character,  and  they  who  greatly  aspire  after  the  greatest 
things  within  the  reach  of  men,  which  are  faith,  hope,  charity  ;  and  who, 
for  the  sake  of  effecting  these  aspirations,  put  their  heels  upon  the  head 
of  the  serpent,  and  suppress  the  animal  in  their  nature — these  are  the  men 
"great  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord." 

113  X 


ENTHUSIASM   FOR  RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

Attd  was  clad  with  zeal   as  a  cloke — IsA.  lix.   17. 

Aru-il  23  ^^^  "^^y  think  that  fiery  enthusiasm  has  little  to  do  with 
'  greatness  ;  I  believe  it  has  everything  to  do  with  it,  and  that  the 
difference  between  men  is  very  largely  to  be  found  here,  whether  they  flame 
up  into  the  white  heat  of  enthusiasm  for  the  things  that  are  right,  or 
whether  the  only  things  that  can  kindle  them  into  anything  like  earnestness 
and  emotion  are  the  poor  shabby  things  of  personal  advantage.  I  need  not 
remind  you  how,  all  through  John  the  Baptist's  career,  there  burnt, 
unflickering  and  undying,  that  steadfast  light ;  how  he  brought  to  the  service 
of  the  plainest  teaching  of  morality  a  fervour  of  passion  and  of  zeal  almost 
unexampled  and  magnificent.  I  need  not  remind  you  how  Jesus  Christ 
Himself  laid  His  hand  upon  this  characteristic,  when  He  said  of  him, 
"he  was  a  light  kindled  and  shining."  But  I  would  lay  upon  all  our 
hearts  the  plain  practical  lesson  that  if  we  keep  in  that  tepid  region 
of  lukewarmness  which  is  the  utmost  approach  to  tropical  heat  that 
moral  and  religious  questions  are  capable  of  raising  in  many  of  us,  good- 
bye to  all  chance  of  being  "great  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord."  We  hear  a 
great  deal  about  the  '*  blessings  of  moderation,"  the  "  dangers  of 
fanaticism,"  and  the  like.  I  venture  to  think  that  the  last  thing  which 
the  moral  consciousness  of  England  wants  to-day  is  a  refrigerator,  and  that 
what  it  needs  a  great  deal  more  than  that  is,  that  all  Christian  people  should 
be  brought  face  to  face  with  this  plain  truth — that  their  religion  has,  as  an 
indispensable  part  of  it,  "  a  spirit  of  burning,"  and  that  if  they  have  not 
been  baptized  in  fire,  there  is  little  reason  to  believe  that  they  have  been 
baptized  with  the  Holy  Ghost. 

"  Full  of  the  Holy  Ghost,"  as  a  vessel  might  be  to  its  brim  of  golden, 
wine  !  Full !  A  dribbling  drop  or  two  in  the  bottom  of  the  jar :  whose 
fault  is  it  ?  Why,  with  that  rushing  mighty  wind  to  fill  our  sails  if  we  like, 
should  we  be  lying  in  the  sickly  calms  of  the  tropics,  with  the  pitch  oozing 
out  of  the  seams,  and  the  idle  canvas  flapping  against  the  mast  ?  Why, 
with  those  tongues  of  fire  hovering  over  our  heads,  should  we  be  cowering 
over  grey  ashes  in  which  there  lives  a  little  spark  ?  Why,  with  that  great 
rushing  tide  of  the  river  of  the  water  of  life,  should  we  be  like  the  dry 
watercourses  of  the  desert,  with  bleached  and  white  stones  baking  where 
the  streams  should  be  running?  "Oh  !  thou  that  art  named  the  house  of 
Israel,  is  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  straitened?  Are  these  His  doings?"  But 
if  we  stay  ourselves  on  God,  amidst  strug<];]e  and  change  here,  He  will 
gladden  us  yonder  with  perpetual  joys.  "  Because  He  is  at  my  right  hand 
I  shall  not  be  moved."  Every  one  of  us  knows  that  to  be  kept  unmoved 
will  demand  the  exercise  of  power  far  beyond  the  limitations  of  humanity. 
We  are  swept  by  such  surges  of  passion  ;  we  are  SM'ayed  by  such  storms  of 
temptation  ;  we  are  smitten  l)y  such  shocks  of  destiny,  that  to  stand  stead- 
fast is  beyond  our  power.  And  there  is  only  one  thing  that  will  make  us 
steadfast,  and  that  is  that  we  should  be,  if  I  mi;:;;ht  use  such  a  figure,  bolted 
and  lashed  on  to,  or  rather  incorporated  into,  the  changeless  steadfastness 
of  the  unmoved  God. 

I  long  that  you  and  myself  may  be  a  flame  for  goodness  ;  may  be 
enthusiastic  over  plain  morality  ;  and  may  sliow  that  we  are  so  by  our 
daily  life,  by  our  rebuking  the  opposite,  if  need  be,  even  if  it  took  us  into 
Herod's  chamber  and  made  Herodias  our  enemy  for  life. 

114 


SELF-ABNEGATION  BEFORE  JESUS   CHRIST. 

He  must  increase,  but  I  must  decrease. — John  iii.  30. 

A  ril  24  There  is  nothing  that  I  know  in  biography  anywhere  more 
beautiful,  more  striking,  than  the  contrast  between  the  two 
halves  of  the  character  and  demeanour  of  the  Baptist  :  how,  on  the  one 
side,  he  fronts  all  men  undaunted  and  recognises  no  superior,  and  how 
neither  threats  nor  flatteries  nor  anything  else  will  tempt  him  to  step  one 
inch  beyond  the  limitations  of  which  he  is  aware,  nor  to  abate  one  inch  of 
the  claims  which  he  urges  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  like  some  tall  cedar, 
touched  by  the  lightning's  hand,  he  falls  prone  before  Jesus  Christ  and  says, 
"  He  must  increase,  and  I  must  decrease."  "  A  man  can  receive  nothing 
except  it  be  given  him  of  God."  He  is  all  boldness  on  one  side  ;  all  sub- 
mission and  dependence  on  the  other. 

You  remember  how,  in  the  face  of  many  temptations,  this  attitude  was 
maintained.  The  very  message  which  he  had  to  carry  was  full  of  tempta- 
tions to  a  self-seeking  man  to  assert  himself.  You  remember  the  almost 
rough  "No!"  with  which,  reiteratedly.  he  met  the  suggestions  of  the 
deputation  from  Jerusalem,  that  sought  to  induce  him  to  say  that  he  was 
more  than  he  knew  himself  to  be,  and  how  he  stuck  by  that  infinitely 
humble  and  beautiful  saying,  "I  am  the  voice'" — that  is  all.  You 
remember  how  the  whole  nation  was  in  a  kind  of  conspiracy  to  tempt  him 
to  assert  himself,  and  was  ready  to  break  into  a  flame  if  he  had  dropped  a 
spark,  for  "all  men  were  musing  in  their  heart  whether  he  was  the  Christ 
or  not,"  and  all  the  lawless  and  restless  elements  would  have  been  only  too 
glad  to  gather  round  him  if  he  had  declared  himself  the  Messiah. 
Remember  how  his  own  disciples  came  to  him,  and  tried  to  play  upon  his 
jealousy,  and  to  induce  him  to  assert  himself.  "  Master  !  lie  whom  thou 
didst  baptize,"  and  so  didst  give  Him  the  first  credentials  that  sent  men  on 
His  course,  has  outstripped  thee,  and  "all  men  are  coming  to  Him."  And 
you  remember  the  lovely  answer  that  opened  such  depths  of  unexpected 
tenderness  in  the  rough  nature.  "  He  that  hath  the  bride  is  the  bridegroom. 
The  friend  of  the  bridegroom  heareth  the  voice  ;  and  that  is  enough  to  fill 
my  cup  with  joy  to  the  very  brim." 

And  what  conceptions  of  Jesus  Christ  had  John  that  he  thus  bowed  his 
lofty  crest  before  Him,  and  softened  his  heart  into  submission  almost  abject  ? 
He  knew  Him  to  be  the  coming  Judge,  with  the  fan  in  His  hand,  who 
could  baptize  with  fire,  and  he  knew  Him  to  be  "  the  Lamb  of  God  which 
taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world."  Therefore  he  fell  before  Him.  We 
shall  not  be  "  great  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord  "  unless  we  copy  that  example 
of  utter  self-abnegation  before  Jesus  Christ.  Thomas  ^  Kempis  says  some- 
where, "  He  is  truly  great  who  is  small  in  his  own  sight  and  thinks  nothing 
of  the  giddy  heights  of  worldly  honour."  You  and  I  know  far  more  ot 
Jesus  Christ  than  John  the  Baptist  did.  Do  we  bow  ourselves  before  Ilim 
as  he  did  ?  The  Source  from  which  he  drew  his  greatness  is  open  to  us  all. 
Let  us  begin  with  the  recognition  of  the  Lamb  of  God  that  takes  away  the 
world's  sin,  and  with  it  ours.  Let  the  thought  of  what  He  is  and  what 
He  has  done  for  us  bow  us  in  unfeigned  submission.  Let  it  shatter  all 
dreams  of  our  own  importance  or  our  own  desert.  The  vision  of  the  Lamb 
of  God,  and  it  only,  will  crush  in  our  hearts  the  serpent's  eggs  of  self- 
esteem  and  self-regard. 


DEATH  AND    LIFE. 

The  law  of  the  Spirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus  made  wie  free  from  the  law 
of  sin  and  death. — Rom.  viii.  2. 

•     .,  „,    The  blood   of  the  first  martyr  spoke  of  death  ;  the  blood  of 
Christ  speaks  of  life. 

The  former,  as  I  have  said,  was  the  first  death.  We  can  partly 
understand  how  awful  must  have  been  the  experience  of  those  who  stood 
by  and  saw,  for  the  first  time,  that  mystery  before  their  eyes — a  dead  man. 
How  there  comes  from  this  first  incident  the  dark  foreboding  of  all  the  dim 
subsequent  events  of  a  like  kind.  It  heads  a  great  series  stretching  away 
into  the  darkness  ;  the  first  of  millions  like  itself,  the  first  experience  of 
that  which  saddens  all  hearts  sooner  or  later,  of  that  which  lays  its  hand 
upon  all  joys  one  time  or  other,  of  that  which  comes  to  each  man  as  a 
rear,  even  when  the  better  man  within  him  reaches  out  towards  it  as  a  hope 
and  a  deliverance.  Abel's  death  speaks  of  the  beginning  of  the  fulfilment 
of  the  solemn  law  which  wraps  us  all.  The  veil  is  spread  over  all  nations, 
and  we  walk  beneath  its  black  folds. 

**The  blood  of  sprinkling  speaketh  better  things."  The  blood  is  the 
life  ;  the  blood  shed  is  the  life  given  up  ;  the  blood  received  is  the  life 
incorporated.  You  can  live  on  the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ.  You  can  have 
it,  if  I  may  so  say,  transfused  into  your  veins.  The  spirit  of  life  which  was 
in  Him  may  be  yours.  It  was  shed  that  it  might  be  partaken  of  by  all 
the  world. 

And  so,  whilst  the  stark  corpse  of  the  first  martyr  lying  there,  pale  and 
bloody  in  its  gore,  proclaims  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  death,  the  blood 
of  Jesus  Christ  proclaims  the  beginning  of  life,  and  is  the  means  of  the 
communication  of  His  own  eternal  and  Divine  life  to  all  that  love  Him 
and  believe  upon  Him.  The  alabaster  box  of  His  manhood  is  broken 
that  the  house  of  the  world  may  be  filled  with  the  odour  of  the  ointment. 
"  He  that  eateth  My  flesh  and  drinketh  My  blood  hath  eternal  life." 

In  that  life  is  given,  too,  purity  like  its  own.  Abel  "being  dead  yet 
speaketh,"  and  proclaims  the  nobleness  of  goodness,  of  righteousness,  and 
of  faith  ;  but  Christ  living,  not  only  proclaims  the  nobleness  of  goodness 
and  righteousness  and  faith,  but  gives  us  His  own  purity;  and  "the  law 
of  the  Spirit  of  life  which  was  in  Christ  Jesus  makes  us  free  from  the  law 
of  sin  and  of  death." 

So,  dear  brother,  one  voice  speaks  of  hatred,  the  other  of  all-embracing 
love  ;  one  voice  speaks  of  retribution,  the  other  of  pardon  ;  one  voice 
prophesies  a  dolorous  prophecy  of  universal  death,  the  other  proclaims  a 
glad  evangel  of  all-conquering  life.  Listen,  then,  to  the  solemn  warning 
with  which,  as  with  uplifted  finger  and  grave  look  of  admonition,  the 
writer  in  the  Hebrews  speaks :  "  See  that  ye  refuse  not  Him  that 
speaketh."  Let  not  your  ears  be  dumb  to  the  infinite  mercy  and  gracious 
pardon  which  speak  to  you  from  the  shed  blood  of  Christ.  God  hears  its 
voice,  and  forgives  all  our  hate.  Do  you  hearken  to  its  voice,  and  accept 
the  love  that  speaks  its  tenderest  message  in  the  blood  shed  for  you. 

116 


VENGEANCE  AND   PARDON. 

Lord,  shall  u:e  smite  with  the  sword?  .  .  .  Jesus  anszvei'ed,  Suffer  ye 
thus  far.     And  He  touched  his  ear^  and  healed  him. — Luke  xxii.  49,  51. 

A  "126  "What  hast  thou  done?  The  voice  of  thy  brother's  blood 
crieth  unto  Me  from  the  ground"  say  the  grand  words  of 
Genesis.  There  it  lies — the  earth  will  not  drink  it  in  ;  there  it  lies, 
pleading,  appealing  to  Divine  justice  to  sniite  the  evildoer.  A  vehement 
figure,  representing  a  solemn  truth,  that  every  evil  has  a  tongue  which 
calls  to  I  leaven  against  the  iniquity  of  the  evildoer  ;  or,  to  put  it  into 
plainer  words,  all  sin  necessarily  appeals  to  God  for  punishment  of  the 
sinner.  It  does  so  from  the  very  nature  of  things  and  the  constitution  of 
the  universe,  ^\^latsoever  is  contrary  to  the  Divine  will  calls  upon  God 
to  smite,  and  smiting  to  avenge.  And  that  is  true,  and  will  be  true 
through  all  eternity.  And  there  is  no  Gospel  that  does  not  base  and  found 
itself  upon  that.  And  the  first  sin  of  man  against  man,  this  first  murder 
and  first  martyrdom,  proclaims  to  earth,  as  it  appeals  to  Heaven,  the 
solemn  fact  that  the  law  of  the  Divine  nature  and  the  necessity  of  the 
universe  is  that  evil  shall  be  punished,  and  that  retribution  shall  follow 
upon  wrong-doing. 

Christ's  death  comes  under  that  law  too.  "  His  blood  be  on  us,  and 
on  our  children,"  shouted  the  frenzied  mob,  lightly  incurring  the  awful 
burden  ;  and  His  blood  was  on  them  and  on  their  children.  And  the 
dissolution  of  their  national  existence,  and  the  sweeping  away  of  their 
special  privileges,  and  the  destruction  of  Temple  and  worship,  and  their 
continuance  till  tliis  day  a  hissing  and  a  bye-word  upon  the  face  of  the 
earth,  show  us  how  the  blood  of  Christ  spoke  what  the  blood  of  Abel 
spoke,  and  cried  to  God  for  vengeance ;  and  the  vengeance  came,  and  is 
here  to-day. 

And  yet  the  cry  for  retribution  is  not  the  predominant  tone.  There  is 
a  deeper  voice  than  that.  Christ's  blood,  meaning  thereby  the  fact  of 
Christ's  death,  is  present  in  the  Divine  mind — not  only  as  the  consequence 
of  man's  sin,  and  therefore  a  crime,  but  as  the  consequence  of  its  own 
infinite  love,  and  therefore  an  atonement  and  a  propitiation.  And  Avhilst 
in  the  one  aspect  it  did  bring  down,  as  it  ought  to  bring  down,  judgments 
upon  the  wicked  hands  that  crucified  and  slew,  in  the  other  aspect  it  has 
brought  down  upon  all  the  world,  and  upon  us  if  we  will  accept  it,  the 
blessing  of  that  pardoning  grace  that  sweeps  away  all  sin  and  makes  us 
pure  and  holy.  The  blood  of  Jesus  Christ  cries  to  God  for  pardon — that 
is  to  say,  is  an  element  ever  present  before  the  Divine  mind,  conditioning 
and  modifying  the  incidence  of  His  judgments,  and  His  punishment  for 
sin.  Here  is  the  centre  of  Christianity.  The  one  thing  which  makes  it 
a  power  to  bless  and  to  help  is  the  Cross,  on  which  the  Sacrifice  for  the 
sins  of  the  world  has  died.  Is  your  Christianity  a  Christianity  which 
founds  on  the  fact  of  Christ's  death  for  the  sins  of  the  world,  and  from  that 
draws  all  your  hope,  all  your  knowledge  of  God  and  of  man,  as  well  as 
all  your  power  for  holiness  and  obedience  ?  I  beseech  you,  let  that  voice 
speak  to  your  hearts  and  consciences,  that  they  may  be  sprinkled  from 
dead  works  by  the  blood  that  "  speaketh  better  things  than  that  of  Abel." 

117 


THE  TWO  VOICES. 

The  voice  of  ihy  brothers  blood  crieih  ttnio  Me  from  the  ground. — 
Gen  iv.  10. 

Speakelh  hciler  things  than  that  of  Abel. — Heb.  xii.  24. 

We  have  the  blood  that  speaks  of  man's  hate,  and  the  other 
"^^  '  blood  that  speaks  of  God's  love.  The  former  was  shed  simply 
because  the  milk  of  brotherly  affection  was  all  curdled  into  hate  through  the 
working  of  jealousy  and  of  envy.  So  that  first  dismal  story  rises  up  on 
the  very  threshold  of  history  as  a  solemn  revelation  of  the  possibilities  of 
diabolical  and  murderous  hatred  that  lie  in  all  human  relationships  and  in 
all  men's  hearts  ;  and  speaks  to  every  one  of  us  the  warning  that  we  shall 
not  cherish  the  tiny  seeds  of  jealousy  and  envy  of  a  brother's  good,  which 
may  ripen  and  fructify  into  the  devilish  fruit  of  murder,  as  it  did  there. 

Christ's  death  was  also  caused  by  man's  sins,  by  the  antagonism  which 
was  raised  in  man  by  His  very  beauty  and  purity.  Eternal  goodness  came 
into  the  world,  and  the  world  hated  the  light,  because  its  deeds  were  evil. 

But  we  have  to  go  deeper  than  that.  The  blood  of  Abel  proclaimed 
man's  hate,  the  blood  of  Christ  proclaims  God's  infinite  love.  For  He 
died,  not  because  men  hated  flim,  but  because  He  loved  men.  He  did 
not  die  because  Pharisees  and  Scribes,  with  all  the  others  who  were  roused 
in  antagonism  against  Him,  carried  out  their  schemes,  but  He  died  because 
He  would.  It  was  not  their  hostility  that  nailed  Him  to  the  Cross,  it  was 
His  purpose  to  save.  It  was  not  because  men  willed  it  that  He  perished 
from  the  life  of  earth,  but  because  He  would  give  Himself  for  us.  And 
so,  whilst  from  that  old  dim  incident  far  away  there,  low  down  on  the 
horizon  of  history,  there  streams  out,  as  it  were,  a  baleful  light  that  speaks 
of  man's  sin  and  hatred,  from  this  other  there  rays  out  a  celestial  brightness, 
which  proclaims  the  infinite  love  of  the  Father  who  gave  His  Son,  and 
the  infinite  love  of  the  Son  who  gave  Himself.  The  one  is  reeking  with 
hatred,  the  other  is  fragrant  with  love.  The  one  shows  the  depths  of 
possible  evil  in  men's  hearts,  and  how  all  human  affection  may  be 
embittered  and  turned  to  its  opposite  ;  the  other  shows  how  the  infinite 
lovingkindness  of  God  lives  on  and  on,  like  the  patient  sunshine  upon  the 
glaciers,  notwithstanding  all  the  coldness  and  the  alienation  ot  man's 
nature,  and  how  that  infinite  and  wondrous  love  shrinks  not  from  even 
the  death  which  the  hate  it  would  win  to  love  can  inflict.  "The  blood 
of  sprinkling  speaketh  better  things  than  that  of  Abel,"  in  that  against  the 
blackness  of  man's  hate  it  lifts  the  sevenfold  lustre  of  the  infinite  love 

of  God. 

118 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE  BLOOD  OF  CHRIST. 

The  blood  of  sprinkling,  that  speaketh  better  things  than  that  of  Abel. — 
Heb.  xii.  24. 

That  dim  figure,  standing  on  the  very  horizon  of  time,  has 
a  tragical  significance.  Abel's  was  the  first  death,  the  first 
murder,  the  first  fi-atricide,  the  first  martyrdom.  And  so,  according  to  the 
energetic  phrase  of  the  Book  of  Genesis,  his  blood  had  a  dolorous  voice. 
It  cried  to  God  from  the  ground  for  retribution.  It  prophesied  of  much 
more  to  follow.  It  proclaimed  the  hatred  of  the  evil  against  the  good, 
and  so  it  was  a  voice  of  lamentation  and  of  woe. 

The  blood  of  Jesus  Christ  has  a  significance  broadly  distinguished  from 
that  of  all  innocent  martyrs.  Abel  is  the  first  of  the  class,  the  type  of  the 
whole,  and  "in  his  hand  a  glass  which  showed  many  more"  to  follow; 
for  the  same  causes  will  produce  the  same  effects.  The  death  of  Christ 
belongs  to  that  class.  He,  too,  is  an  innocent  Victim  ;  He,  too,  dies 
because  bad  men  hate  the  good  with  a  murderous  hatred  ;  He,  too,  dies 
because  He  bears  witness  to  the  truth,  and  for  the  truth  to  which  He  bears 
witness.     He  is  a  Martyr. 

And  is  that  all  ?  Does  the  blood  of  Christ  speak  the  same  things  as 
the  blood  of  Abel,  only  more  tenderly  and  more  loudly  ?  Nay ;  there 
are  some  of  us,  I  am  afraid,  to  whom  it  does  ;  to  whom  it  only  reiterates 
the  old  lesson  of  the  world's  wages  to  the  world's  teachers ;  to  whom  it  is 
nothing  more  than  the  highest,  the  most  touching,  the  most  tragic  example 
of  what  the  good  man  has  to  meet  with  when  he  asserts  the  principles 
of  his  own  life  against  the  principles  on  which  the  world's  lives  are  mostly 
regulated.  Let  me  urge  upon  you  that  if  Christ's  blood  says  nothing 
more  to  you  than  that  He  is  the  foremost  of  the  martyrs  and  the  inno- 
cents, who  have  died  because  the  world  hated  them  and  their  goodness, 
Christ's  blood  is  dumb  to  you. 

It  speaks  other  lessons  altogether  than  these,  dear  brother  ;  does  it 
speak  them  to  you  ?  Have  you  penetrated  beneath  that  surface  significance 
which,  blessed  as  it  is,  is  only  surface,  and  have  you  come  down  to  the 
characteristic  thing,  the  something  more,  which  makes  Christianity  all 
that  it  is,  of  blessing  and  power  ?  And  do  you  hear  another  proclamation 
altogether  from  the  shed  blood  than  the  proclamation  of  innocent  martyrdom, 
as  over  the  fate  of  the  good  and  the  pure  ? 

"We  love  Him,  because  He  first  loved  us."  Very  simple  words! 
But  they  go  down  into  the  depths  of  God,  lifting  burdens  off  the  heart  of 
humanity,  turning  duty  into  delight,  and  changing  the  aspect  of  all  things. 
He  who  knows  that  God  loves  him  needs  little  more  for  blessedness ;  he 
who  loves  God  back  again  offers  more  than  all  burnt  offering  and  sacrifices. 

119 


MUTUAL  FRIENDSHIP. 

A  friend  loveth  at  all  times,  and  a  brother  is  born  for  adversity. — Prov. 
xvii.  17. 

Mutual  conHdence  is  the  morlar  which   binds  the  stones  in 
Avril  29. 

society    together   into   a    building^.       It    makes    the   difference 

between  the  lierding  together  of  beasts  and  the  association  of  men.     No 

community  could  keep  together  for  an  hour  without  mutual  confidence, 

even  in  regard  of  the  least  intimate  relationsliips  of  life.     But  it  is  the  very 

lifeblood  of  friendship.     You  cannot  say,   "A.  B.   is  my  friend,  but  I  do 

not  trust  him."     If  suspicion  creeps  in,   like  the  foul  malaria  of  tropical 

swamps,  it  kills  all  friendship.     Therefore   "he  was  called  the  friend  of 

God"  is  by  James  deduced  from  the  fact  that  "he  believed  God,  and  it 

was  imputed  to  him  for  righteousness."     You  cannot  make  a  friend  of  a  man 

that  you  do  not  know  where  to  have.     There  may  be  some  vague  reverence 

of,  or  abject  reluctant  submission  to,  "  the  unknown  God,"  the  something 

outside  of  ourselves  that  perhaps  makes  for  rigliteousness  ;  but  for  any  vivid, 

warm  throb  of  friendship  there  must  be,  first  a  clear  knowledge,  and  then 

a  living  grappling  of  that  knowledge  to  my  very  heart,  by  my  faith.     Unless 

I  trust  God  I  cannot  be  a  friend  of  God's.     If  you  and  I  are  His  friends,  we 

trust  Him,  and  He  will  trust  us.     For  this  friendship  is  not  one-sided  ;  and 

the  word,  though  it  may  be  ambiguous  as  to  whether  it  means  one  whom 

I  love  or  one  who  loves  me,  really  includes  both  persons  to  the  compact, 

and  there  are   analogous,   if  not   identical,  emotions   in  each.     So  that, 

if  I  trust  God,  I  may  be  sure  that  God  trusts  me,  and,  in  Plis  confidence, 

leaves  a  great  deal  to  me,  and  so  ennobles  and  glorifies  me  by  His  reliance 

upon  me. 

And  so  we  come  to  this,  that  the  heavenly  and  the  earthly  friend,  like 

friends  on  the  low  levels  of  humanity,  love  each  other  because  they  trust 

each  other.     I   have  said  that  the  words  "my  friend"  may  either  mean 

one  whom  I  love  or  one  who  loves  me,  but  that  the  two  things  are,  in  the 

present  connection,  inseparable.     Only  let  us  remember  where  the  sweet 

reciprocation  and  interchange  of  love  begins  :  "We  love  Him  because  He 

first  loved  us."     "When  we  were  enemies,  we  were  reconciled  to  God  by 

the  death  of  His  Son."     And  so  we  have  to  turn  to  that  heavenly  Friend, 

and  feel  that  as  life  itself,  so  the  love  which  is  the  life  of  life,  has  its 

beginning  in  Him,  and  that  never  would  our  hearts  have  turned  themselves 

from  their  alienation  unless  there  had  poured  down  upon  them  the  attractive 

outflow  of  His  great  love.     It  v/as  an  old  fancy  that,  wherever  a  tree  was 

struck  by  lightning,  all  its  tremulous  foliage  turned  in  the  direction  from 

which  the  bolt  had  come.     When  ihe  merciful  flash  of  God's  great  love 

strikes  a  heart,   then  all  its  tendrils  turn  to  the  source  of  the  life-giving 

light,  and  we  love  back  again  in  sweet  reverberation  to  the  primal  and 

original  love. 

120 


THE   PERFECT  VISION  AND   THE   PERFECT  LIKENESS. 

As  for  me,  I  shall  behold  Thy  face  in  righteousness  :  I  shall  be  salisfed, 
when  I  awake,  with  Thy  likeness. — Psalm  xvii.  15. 

To  behold  Christ  will  be  the  condition  and  the  means  of  growing 
^"  '  like  Him.  That  way  of  transformation  by  beholding,  or  of 
assimilation  by  the  power  of  loving  contemplation,  is  the  blessed  way  of 
ennobling  character,  which  even  here,  and  in  human  relationships,  has 
often  made  it  easy  to  put  off  old  vices  and  to  clothe  the  soul  with  unwonted 
grace.  Men  have  learned  to  love  and  gaze  upon  some  fair  character  till 
some  image  of  its  beauty  has  passed  into  their  ruder  natures.  To  love  such 
and  to  look  on  them  has  been  an  education.  The  same  process  is  exem- 
plified in  more  sacred  regions,  and  quickened  by  Divine  powers,  as  men 
learn  to  love  and  look  upon  Christ,  and  so  become  like  Him,  as  the  sun 
stamps  a  tiny  copy  of  its  blazing  sphere  on  the  eye  that  looks  at  it.  But 
all  these  are  but  poor,  far-off  hints  and  low  preludes  of  the  energy  with 
which  that  blessed  vision  of  the  glorified  Christ  shall  work  on  the  happy 
hearts  that  behold  Elim,  and  of  the  completeness  of  the  likeness  to  Him 
which  will  be  stamped  in  light  upon  their  faces. 

It  matters  not,  though  it  doth  nor  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be,  if  to  all 
the  questionings  of  our  own  hearts  we  have  this  for  our  all -sufficient  answer, 
*'  We  shall  be  like  Him."     As  good  old  Richard  Baxter  has  it : — 
"  My  knowledge  of  that  life  is  small, 
The  eye  of  faith  is  dim  ; 
But,  'ti ;  enough  that  Christ  knows  all. 
And  I  shall  be  like  Him  !" 

It  is  enough  for  the  servant  that  he  be  as  his  Lord. 

There  is  no  need  to  go  into  the  dark  and  difficult  questions  about  that 
vision.  "We  shall  see  Him  as  He  is."  For  He  Himself  prayed,  in  that 
great  intercessory  prayer,  "  Father,  I  will  that  these  whom  Thou  hast 
given  Me  be  with  Me  where  I  am,  that  they  may  behold  My  glory."  And 
that  vision  of  the  glorified  manhood  of  Jesus  Christ — certain,  direct,  clear, 
and  worthy,  whether  it  come  through  sense  or  through  thought,  to  be 
called  vision — is  all  the  sight  of  God  that  men  in  Heaven  through  eternity 
will  have.  '*  No  man  hath  seen  God  at  any  time,  nor  can  see  Him." 
And  through  the  millenniums  of  a  growing  glory,  Christ,  as  He  is,  will  be  the 
manifested  Deity.  Then,  as  a  bit  of  glass,  when  the  light  strikes  it,  flashes 
into  sunny  glory,  as  every  poor  little  muddy  pool  on  the  pavement,  when 
the  sunbeam  falls  upon  it,  has  the  sun  mirrored  even  in  its  shallow  mud,  so 
into  your  poor  heart  and  mine  the  vision  of  Christ's  glory  will  come, 
moulding  and  transforming  you  to  its  own  beauty.  Those  rays  of  His 
beauties  will  pour  right  down  upon  us,  "as  with  unveiled  face,"  reflecting, 
as  glass  does,  the  glory  of  the  Lord,  we  "shall  be  changed  into  the  same 


image.*' 


121 


THE   PEACE   OF   FORGIVENESS. 

/  wait  for  the  Lord,  my  soul  doth  wait,  and  in  His  word  do  I  hope.  My 
soul  looketh  for  the  Lord,  more  than  watchmen  look  for  the  morning ;  yea, 
more  than  watchmen  for  the  morning. — Psalm  cxxx.  5,  6. 

„     .      This  is  what  I  call  the  permanent,  peaceful  attitude  of  the  spirit 

*^  '  that  has  tasted  the  sweet  consciousness  of  forgiving  love,  a  con- 
tinual dependence  upon  God. 

Like  a  man  that  has  just  recovered  from  some  illness,  but  still  leans  upon 
the  hand,  and  feels  his  need  of  seeing  the  face,  of  that  kindly  physician  that 
had  helped  him  through,  there  will  be  still,  and  always,  the  necessity  for  the 
continual  application  of  that  pardoning  love.  But  they  that  have  tasted 
that  the  Lord  is  gracious  can  sit  very  quietly  at  His  feet  and  trust  them- 
selves to  His  kindly  dealings,  resting  their  souls  upon  His  strong  word,  and 
looking  for  the  fuller  communication  of  light  from  Himself.  A  beautiful 
picture  of  a  tranquil,  continuous,  ever-rewarded,  and  ever-fresh  waiting 
upon  Him,  and  reliance  upon  His  mercy. 

"More  than  they  that  watch  for  the  morning."  That  is  beautiful! 
The  consciousness  of  sin  was  the  dark  night.  The  coming  of  His  forgiving 
love  flushed  all  the  eastern  heaven  with  diffused  brightness  that  grew  into 
the  perfect  day.  And  so  the  man  waits  quietly  for  the  dawn,  and  his  whole 
soul  is  one  absorbing  desire  that  God  may  dwell  with  him,  and  brighten  and 
gladden  him. 

The  thundery  side  of  the  sky  makes  all  the  more  tender  the  sapphire 
blue  of  the  other  side  : — "But  there  is  forgiveness  with  Thee,  that  Thou 
mayest  be  feared."  No  man  ever  comes  to  that  confidence  that  has  not 
sprung  to  it,  as  it  were,  by  a  rebound  from  the  other  thought.  It  needs, 
first  of  all,  that  the  lieart  should  have  tremblingly  entertained  the  contrary 
by  hypothesis,  in  order  that  the  heart  should  spring  into  the  relief  and  the 
gladness  of  the  counter  truth.  It  must  fiist  have  felt  the  shudder  of  the 
thought,  "  If  Thou,  Lord,  shouldst,"  in  order  to  come  to  the  gladness  of 
the  thought,  "  But  there  is  forgiveness  with  Thee  !  " 

Do  you  know  what  Beihesda  means?  "  House  of  Mercy"  ;  perhaps  so 
named  to  commemorate  some  benefactor  that  had  built  the  portico  ;  more 
probably  to  suggest  to  the  poor  sick  creatures  a  gleam  of  hope  from  the 
thought  that  God  had  love  and  care  for  them.  There  seemed  a  sharp  con- 
tradiction between  the  condition  of  the  people  and  the  name.  But  we  are 
gathered,  as  they  were,  in  the  House  of  Mercy.  That  is  to  say,  though  we 
have  all  departed  from  the  right  way,  God's  love  encompasses  us  still,  and 
this  earth,  seamed  and  stained  as  it  has  been  by  man's  sin,  is,  notwithstand- 
ing, the  chosen  field  in  which  He  will  manifest  the  tenderness  of  His 
compassion  and  the  love  of  I^is  heart.  If  any  of  you  ever  saw  St.  Peter's 
in  Rome,  you  will  remember  the  great  sweeping  colonnades  which  extend 
from  its  front  and  reach  out  their  arms  as  though  they  woald  embrace  the 
city  and  the  world  ;  and  in  the  midst  there  springs  and  sparkles  a  pure 
fountain.  So  God's  love  compasses  all  us  sick  folk,  and  in  the  midst  there 
rises  the  fountain  which  will  heal.  We  are  in  the  House  of  Mercy.  The 
world  is  gathered  round  the  fountain  opened  for  sin  and  for  unclcanness. 
It  is  not  intermittent,  Init  evermore  His  blood  avails  for  us.  It  is  not  ex- 
hausted by  one  cure,  or  by  two  or  three  ;  but  there  is  enough  for  each  and 
enough  for  all ;  enough  for  thee  and  me  and  all  our  fellows.  Christ  is 
coming  to  you  by  my  poor  unworthy  words,  and  saying,  "  Wilt  thou  be  made 
whole  ?  "     Take  Christ  for  your  Healer,  for  your  healing,  for  your  health. 

123 


DELIVERANCE   FOR   THE   CAPTIVES. 

He  hath  sent  me  ,  .  .  to  prodahn  liberty  to  the  captives,  and  the 
opening  of  the  prison  to  them  that  are  bound. — IsA,  Ixi.  I. 

jj  2.  Many  of  us  know  not  the  bondage  in  which  we  are  heM.  We 
are  held  in  it  all  the  more  really  and  sadly  because  we  conceit 
ourselves  to  be  free.  Those  poor,  light-hearted  people,  in  the  dreadful 
days  of  the  French  Revolution,  used  to  keep  up  some  ghastly  mockery  of 
society  and  cheerfulness  in  their  prisons  ;  and  festooned  the  bars  with 
flowers,  and  made  believe  to  be  carrying  on  their  life  freely,  as  they  used 
to  do  ;  but  for  all  that,  day  after  day  the  tumbrils  came  to  the  gates, 
and  morning  after  morning  the  jailer  stood  at  the  door  of  the  dungeons 
with  the  fatal  list  in  his  hand,  and  one  after  another  of  the  triflers  were 
dragged  away  to  death. 

And  so  men  and  women  are  living  a  life  which  they  fancy  is  free,  and 
all  the  while  they  are  in  bondage,  held  in  a  prison-house.  You,  my  brother, 
are  chained  by  guilt  ;  you  are  chained  by  sin,  you  are  chained  by  the 
habit  of  evil  with  a  strength  of  which  you  never  know  till  you  try  to  shake 
it  off. 

And  there  comes  to  each  of  us  a  mighty  Deliverer,  who  breaks  the 
gates  of  brass,  and  who  cuts  the  bars  of  iron  in  sunder.  Christ  comes  to 
us.  By  His  death  He  has  borne  away  the  guilt ;  by  His  living  Spirit  He 
will  bear  away  the  dominion  of  sin  from  our  hearts  ;  and  if  the  Son  will 
make  us  free,  we  shall  be  free  indeed.  Oh  !  ponder  that  deep  truth,  I  pray 
you,  which  the  Lord  Christ  has  spoken  in  words  that  carry  conviction  in 
their  very  simplicity  to  every  conscience.  "He  that  committeth  sin  is  the 
slave  of  sin."  And  as  you  feel  sometimes — and  you  all  feel  sometimes — 
the  catch  of  the  fetter  on  your  wrists  when  you  would  fain  stretch  out  your 
hands  to  good,  listen  as  to  a  true  Gospel  to  this  old  word  which,  in  its 
picturesque  imagery,  carries  a  truth  that  should  be  life.  To  us  all  *'the 
breaker  is  gone  up  before  us,  the  prison  gates  are  open."  Follow  His 
steps,  and  take  the  freedom  which  He  gives  ;  and  beware  that  you  ' '  stand 
fast  in  the  liberty  wherewith  Christ  hath  made  you  free,  and  be  not 
entangled  again  with  any  yoke  of  bondage." 

Some  of  you  are  the  slaves  of  your  own  lusts.  Some  of  you  are  the 
slaves  of  the  world's  maxims.  Some  of  you  ai'e  held  in  bondage  by  some 
habit  that  you  abominate,  but  cannot  get  away  from.  Here  is  freedom  for 
you.  The  dark  walls  of  the  prison  are  round  us  all.  "The  Scripture  hath 
shut  up  all  in  sin,  that  He  might  have  mercy  upon  all."  Blessed  be  His 
Name  !  As  the  angel  came  to  the  sleeping  Apostle,  and  to  his  light  touch 
the  iron  gates  swung  obedient  on  their  hinges,  and  Roman  soldiers  who 
ought  to  have  watched  their  prey  were  lulled  to  sleep,  and  fetters  that  held 
the  limbs  dropped  as  if  melted ;  so,  silently,  in  His  meek  and  merciful 
strength,  the  Christ  comes  to  us  all,  and  the  iron  gate  which  leadeth  out 
into  freedom  opens  of  its  ov/n  accord  at  His  touch,  and  the  fetters  fall  from 
our  limbs,  and  we  go  forth  free  men. 

123 


THE   NEW   AND   THE    LIVING   WAV. 

The  way  which  He  dedicated  for  us,  a  new  and  living  way,  through  the 
veily  that  is  to  say,  His  flesh. — IIeb.  x.  20. 

If  we  rightly  understand  our  natural  condition,  it  is  not  only 
'     one  of  bondage  to  evil,  but  it  is  one  of  separation  from  God. 

Parts  of  the  Divine  character  are  always  beautiful  and  sweet  to  every 
human  heart  when  it  thinks  about  them.  Parts  of  the  Divine  character 
stand  frowning  before  a  man  who  knows  himself  for  what  he  is;  and 
conscience  tells  us  that  between  Him  and  us  there  is  a  mountain  of 
impediment  piled  up  by  our  own  evil.  And  Christ  comes,  the  Path-finder 
and  the  Path  ;  the  Pioneer  who  breaks  the  way  for  us  through  all  the 
hindrances,  and  leads  us  up  to  the  presence  of  God. 

For  we  do  not  know  God  as  Pie  is  except  by  Jesus  Christ.  We  see 
fragments,  and  often  distorted  fragments,  of  the  Divine  nature  and 
character  apart  from  Jesus, but  the  real  Divine  nature  as  it  is,  and  as  it 
is  in  its  relation  to  me,  a  sinner,  is  only  made  known  to  me  in  the  face 
of  Jesus  Christ.  When  we  see  Him  we  see  God.  Christ's  tears  are  God's 
pity,  Christ's  gentleness  is  God's  meekness,  Christ's  tender  drawing  love  is 
not  only  a  revelation  of  a  most  pure  and  sweet  brother's  heart,  but  a 
manifestation  through  that  brother's  heart  of  the  deepest  depths  of  the 
Divine  nature.  Christ  is  the  heart  of  God.  Apart  from  Him,  we  come 
to  the  God  of  our  own  consciences,  and  we  tremble  ;  we  come  to  the  God 
of  our  own  fancies,  and  we  presume  ;  we  come  to  the  God  dimly  guessed  at 
and  pieced  together  from  out  of  the  hints  and  indications  of  His  works,  and 
He  is  little  more  than  a  dead  name  to  us.  Apart  from  Christ,  we  come  to 
a  peradventure  which  we  call  a  God — a  shadow  through  which  you  can  see 
the  stars  shining.  But  we  know  the  Father  when  we  believe  in  Christ. 
And  so  all  the  clouds  rising  from  our  own  hearts  and  consciences  and  fancies 
and  misconceptions  which  we  have  piled  together,  between  God  and  our- 
selves, Christ  clears  away  ;  and  in  this  way  He  opens  the  path  to  God.  It 
is  only  the  God  manifest  in  Jesus  Christ  that  draws  men's  hearts  to  Him. 
The  God  that  is  in  Christ  is  the  only  God  that  humanity  ever  loved. 
Other  gods  they  may  have  worshipped  with  cowering  terror  and  with  far-off 
lip-reverence,  but  this  God  has  a  heart,  and  wins  hearts  because  He  has, 
and  so  Christ  opens  the  way  to  Him.  He  not  only  makes  God  known  to 
us,  and  not  only  makes  Him  so  known  to  us  as  to  draw  us  to  Him,  but  in 
that  likewise  He,  by  the  fact  of  His  Cross  and  Passion,  has  borne,  and 
borne  away,  the  impediments  of  our  own  sin  and  transgression  which  rise 
for  ever  between  us  and  Him. 

124 


OUR   CAPTAIN. 

The  breaker  is  gone  up  before  them ;  they  have  broken  forth,  and 
passed  on  to  the  gate,  and  are  gone  out  thereat :  and  their  king  is  passed  on 
before  them,  and  the  Lord  at  the  head  of  them. — MiCAH  ii.  13. 

Our  Lord  is  the  breaker,  going  up  before  us  in  the  sense  that 
^^  '  He  is  the  captain  of  our  Hfe's  march.  The  prophet  knew  not  that 
the  Lord  their  King,  of  whom  it  is  enigmatically  said  that  he,  too,  as  well 
as  "the  breaker,"  is  to  go  before  them,  was,  in  mysterious  fashion,  to 
dwell  in  that  breaker  ;  and  that  those  two,  whom  he  sees  separately,  are 
yet  in  a  deep  and  mysterious  sense  one.  The  host  of  the  captives,  returning 
in  triumphant  march  through  the  wilderness  and  to  the  promised  land,  is, 
in  the  prophet's  words,  headed  both  by  the  breaker  and  by  the  Lord.  We 
know  that  the  breaker  is  the  Lord,  the  Angel  of  the  Covenant  in  whom  is 
the  name  of  Jehovah.  Christ  breaks  the  prison  of  our  sins,  and  leads  us 
forth  on  the  path  to  God,  marches  at  the  head  of  our  life's  journey,  and  is 
our  example  and  commander,  and  Himself  present  with  us  through  all 
life's  changes  and  its  sorrows.  Here  is  the  great  blessing  and  peculiarity 
of  Christian  morals  that  they  are  all  brought  down  to  that  sweet  obligation  : 
"Do  as  I  did."  Here  is  the  great  blessing  and  strength  for  the  Christian 
life  in  all  its  difficulties — you  can  never  go  where  you  cannot  see  in  the 
desert  the  footprints,  haply  spotted  with  blood,  that  your  Master  left  there 
before  you,  and,  planting  your  trembling  feet  in  the  prints,  as  a  child  might 
imitate  his  father's  strides,  learn  to  recognise  that  all  duty  comes  to  this  : 
*'  Follow  Me  "  ;  and  that  all  sorrow  is  calmed,  ennobled,  made  tolerable 
and  glorified  by  the  thought  that  He  has  borne  it. 

The  Roman  matron  of  the  legend  struck  the  knife  into  her  bosom,  and 
handed  it  to  her  husband  with  the  words,  "It  is  not  painful ! "  Christ  has 
gone  before  us  in  all  the  dreary  solitude,  and  in  all  the  agony  and  pains  of 
life.  He  has  hallowed  them  all,  and  has  taken  the  bitterness  and  the  pain 
out  of  each  of  them  for  them  that  love  Him.  If  we  feel  that  the  breaker  is 
before  us,  and  that  we  are  marching  behind  Him,  then  whithersoever  He 
leads  us  we  may  follow,  and  whatsoever  He  has  passed  through  we  may 
pass  through.  We  carry  in  His  life  the  all-sufficing  pattern  of  duty.  We 
have  in  His  companionship  the  all-strengthening  consolation.  Let  us  leave 
the  direction  of  our  road  in  His  hands  who  never  says  "  Go  ! "  but  always 
"  Come  !"  This  general  marches  in  the  midst  of  His  battalions,  and  sets 
His  soldiers  on  no  enterprises  or  forlorn  hopes  which  He  has  not  Himself 
dared  and' overcome.  So  Christ  goes  as  our  companion  before  us,  the  true 
pillar  of  fire  and  cloud  in  which  the  present  Deity  abode,  and  He  is  with 
us  in  real  companionship.  Our  joyful  march  through  the  wilderness  is 
directed,  patterned,  protected,  companioned  by  Him ;  and  when  He 
"  putteth  forth  His  own  sheep,"  blessed  be  His  Name  !  "  He  goeth  before 
them." 

125 


JESUS   THE   FORERUNNER. 

Within  the  veil,  whtfher  as  a  forerunner  Jesus  entered  for  us,  having 
become  a  High  Priest  for  ever  after  the  order  of  Melchisedek. — Heb.  vi.  20. 

„  -  Christ's  resurrection  is  the  only  solid  proof  of  a  future  life. 
*^  '  Chrisfs  present  resurrection  life  is  the  power  by  partaking  in 
which,  "though  we  were  dead,  yet  shall  we  live."  He  has  trodden  that 
path,  too,  before  us.  He  has  entered  into  the  great  prison-house  into 
which  the  generations  of  men  have  been  hounded  and  hurried,  and  where 
they  lie  in  their  graves,  as  in  their  narrow  cells  ;  He  has  entered  there. 
With  one  blow  He  has  driven  the  gates  from  their  hinges,  and  has  passed 
out,  and  no  soul  can  any  longer  be  shut  in  as  for  ever  into  that  ruined  and 
opened  prison.  Like  Samson,  He  has  taken  the  gates  which  from  of  old 
barred  its  entrance,  and  borne  them  on  His  strong  shoulders  to  the  city  on 
the  hill.  And  now  death's  darts  are  blunted,  his  fetters  are  broken,  and  his 
gaol  has  its  doors  wide  open.  And  there  is  nothing  for  him  to  do  now 
but  to  fall  upon  his  sword  and  to  kill  himself,  for  the  prisoners  are  gone. 
"  Oh,  death  !  I  will  be  thy  plague  ;  oh,  grave  !  I  will  be  thy  destruction." 
*'  The  breaker  has  gone  up  before  us  "  ;  therefore  it  is  not  possible  that  we 
should  be  holden  of  the  impotent  chains  that  He  has  broken. 

The  Forerunner  is  for  us  entered,  passed  through  the  heavens,  and 
entered  into  the  holiest  of  all.  We  are  too  closely  knit  to  Him,  if  we  love 
Him  and  trust  Him,  to  make  it  possible  that  we  shall  be  where  He  is  not, 
or  that  He  shall  be  where  we  are  not.  Where  He  has  gone  we  shall  go — 
in  Heaven,  blessed  be  His  Name  !  He  will  still  be  the  leader  of  our 
progress  and  the  captain  at  the  head  of  our  march.  For  He  crowns  all 
His  other  work  by  this,  that,  having  broken  the  prison-house  of  our  sins, 
and  opened  for  us  the  way  to  God,  and  been  the  leader  and  the  captain 
of  our  march  through  all  the  pilgrimage  of  life,  and  the  opener  of  the  gate 
of  the  grave,  for  our  joyful  resurrection,  and  the  opener  of  the  gate  of 
Heaven  for  our  triumphal  entrance,  He  will  still,  as  the  Lamb  that  is  in 
the  midst  of  the  Throne,  go  before  us,  and  lead  us  into  green  pastures  and 
by  the  still  waters  ;  and  this  shall  be  the  description  of  the  growing  blessed- 
ness and  power  of  the  saints'  life  above,  *' These  are  they  which  follow 
the  Lamb  whithersoever  He  goeth." 

This  Master,  Christ,  works  in  front  of  His  men.  The  farmer  that  goes 
first  among  all  the  sowers,  and  heads  the  Hne  of  reapers  in  the  yellowing 
harvest-field,  may  well  have  diligent  servants.  Our  Master  went  forth, 
weeping,  bearing  precious  seed,  and  has  left  it  in  our  hands  to  sow  in  all 
furrows.  Our  ^i aster  is  the  Lord  of  the  harvest,  and  has  borne  the  heat  of 
the  day  before  His  servants.  Let  it  be  our  life's  work  to  show  forth  Christ's 
praise.  Let  the  very  atmosphere  in  which  we  move  and  have  our  being  be 
prayer.  Let  two  great  currents  set  ever  through  our  days,  which  two,  like 
the  great  movements  in  the  ocean  of  the  air,  are  but  the  upper  and  under 
halves  of  the  one  movement — that  beneath  with  constant  energy  of  desires 
rushing  in  from  the  cold  poles  to  be  warmed  and  expanded  at  the  tropics, 
where  the  all-moving  sun  pours  his  direct  rays  ;  that  above  charged  with 
rich  gifts  from  the  Lord  of  light,  glowing  with  heat  drawn  from  Him,  and 
made  diffusive  by  His  touch,  spreading  itself  out  beneficent  and  life- 
kringing  into  all  colder  lands,  swathing  the  world  in  soft,  warm  folds,  and 
turning  the  polar  ice  into  sweet  waters. 

126 


DIVINE  WISDOM. 

If  any  of  you  lacketh  wisdom,  let  hun  ask  of  God,  who  giveth  to  all  men 
liberally,  and  upbraideth  not. — ^James  i.  5» 

What  does  James  mean  by  "wisdom"?  lie  means  the  sum 
of  practical  religion.  With  him,  as  with  the  Psalmist,  sin  and 
foil}'  are  two  names  for  the  same  thing,  and  so  are  religion  and  wisdom. 
He,  and  only  he,  has  wisdom  who  knows  God  with  a  living  heart-know- 
ledge which  gives  a  just  insight  into  the  facts  of  life  and  the  bounds  of  right 
and  wrong,  and  which  regulates  conduct  and  shapes  the  whole  man  with 
power  far  beyond  that  of  knowledge,  however  wide  and  deep,  illuminating 
intellect,  however  powerful.  "Knowledge"  is  poor  and  superficial  in 
comparison  with  this  w'isdom,  which  may  roughly  be  said  to  be  equivalent 
to  practical  religion. 

The  use  of  this  expression  to  indicate  the  greatest  deficiency  in  the 
average  Christian  character  just  suggests  this  thought,  that  if  we  had  a 
clear,  constant,  certain  God-regarding  insight  into  things  as  they  are,  we 
should  lack  little.  Because,  if  a  man  habitually  kept  vividly  before  him 
the  thought  of  God,  and  with  it  the  true  nature  and  obligation  and  blessed- 
ness of  righteous-loving  obedience,  and  the  true  foulness  and  fatalness  of 
sin — if  he  saw  these  with  the  clearness  and  the  continuity  with  which  we 
may  all  see  the  things  that  are  unseen  and  eternal ;  if  he  "  saw  life  steadily, 
and  saw  it  whole  "  ;  if  he  saw  the  rottenness  and  the  shallowness  of  earthly 
things  and  temptations,  and  if  he  saw  the  blessed  issue  of  every  God-pleasing 
act — why  !  the  perfecting  of  conduct  would  be  secured. 

It  would  be  an  impossibility  for  him,  with  all  that  illumination  blazing 
in  upon  him,  not  to  walk  in  the  paths  of  righteousness  with  a  glad  and 
serene  heart.  I  do  not  believe  that  all  sin  is  a  consequence  of  ignorance, 
but  I  do  believe  that  our  average  Christian  life  would  be  revolutionised  if 
we  each  carried  clear  before  us,  and  continually  subjected  our  lives  to  the 
influence  of,  the  certain  verities  of  God's  Word.  The  thing  that  we  want 
most  is  clearer  and  more  vivid  conceptions  of  the  realities  of  the  Christian 
revelation  and  of  the  facts  of  human  life.  These  will  act  as  tests,  and  up 
will  start  in  his  own  shape  the  fiend  that  is  whispering  at  our  ears,  when 
touched  by  the  spear  of  this  Divine  wisdom.  So  here  is  our  root- 
deficiency  ;  therefore,  instead  of  confining  ourselves  to  trying  to  cure 
isolated  and  specific  faults,  or  to  attain  isolated  and  specific  virtues,  let  us 
go  deeper  down,  and  realise  that  the  more  our  whole  natures  are  submitted 
to  the  power  of  God's  truth,  and  of  the  realities  of  the  future  and  of  the 
present,  of  Time  and  Eternity,  the  nearer  shall  we  come  to  being  "  perfect 
and  entire,"  lacking  nothing. 

127 


HOW  TO   GET  WISDOM. 

Let  hint  ask  in  faith,  nothing  doubting :  for  he  that  doubteth  is  like  the 
surge  of  the  sea  driven  by  the  wind  and  tossed. — ^James  i.  6. 

__  _  "Let  him  ask.**  This  direction  might  at  first  sight  strike  one 
^  '  as  being  like  the  specification  of  the  thing  lacking,  scarcely 
what  we  should  have  expected.  Does  James  say,  If  any  of  you  lack 
"wisdom,"  let  him  sit  down  and  think?  No!  "If  any  of  >ou  lack 
wisdom,"  let  him  take  a  course  of  reading  ?  No  !  "  If  any  of  you  lack  wis- 
dom," let  him  go  to  pundits  and  rabbis,  and  get  it  from  them  ?  No  !  "  If 
any  of  you  lack  wisdom,  let  him  ask."  A  strange  apparent  disconnection 
between  the  issue  and  the  means  suggested  !  Very  strange,  if  -wisdom 
lives  only  up  in  the  head  !  Not  so  strange  if  it  has  its  seat  in  the 
depths  of  the  human  spirit.  If  you  want  to  learn  theology,  you  have  to 
study.  If  you  seek  to  master  any  science,  you  have  to  betake  yourself 
to  the  appropriate  discipline.  It  is  of  no  use  to  pray  to  God  to  make  you 
a  good  geologist,  or  botanist,  or  lawyer,  or  doctor,  unless  you  also  ta'  e  the 
necessary  means  to  become  one.  But  if  a  man  wants  the  Divine  wisdom, 
let  him  get  down  on  his  knees.  That  is  the  best  place  to  secure  it.  "  Let 
him  ask "  ;  because  that  insight,  so  clear,  so  vivid,  so  constant,  and  so 
perfectly  adequate  for  the  regulation  of  the  life,  is  of  God.  It  comes  to  us 
trom  the  Spirit  of  God  that  dwells  in  men's  hearts.  And  to  receive  that 
spirit  of  wisdom  the  one  thing  necessary  is  that  we  should  want  it.  That 
is  all.  Nothing  more,  but  nothing  less.  I  doubt  very  much  whether 
hosts  of  the  average  Christian  people  of  this  generation  do  want  it,  or  would 
know  what  to  do  with  it  if  they  had  it  ;  or  whether  the  gift  of  a  heart 
purged  from  delusions,  and  of  eyes  made  clear  always  to  behold  the  God 
who  is  ever  with  us,  and  the  real  importance  of  the  things  around  us,  is 
the  gift  that  most  of  us  pray  for  most.  "  If  any  man  lack  wisdom,  let  him 
ask."  It  is  a  gift,  and  it  is  to  be  obtained  from  that  Holy  Spirit  who 
dwells  and  works  in  all  believers.  The  measure  of  their  desire  is  the 
measure  of  their  possession.  That  wisdom  can  be  had  for  the  asking,  and 
is  not  to  be  won  by  proudly  self-reliant  effort.  But  let  us  not  think  that 
any  kind  of  "asking"  suffices  to  put  that  great  gift  in  our  hearts.  The 
petition  that  avails  must  be  sincere,  intense,  constant,  and  accompanied 
by  corresponding  conduct. 

Wisdom  is  not  exactly  what  we  should  have  expected  to  be  named  as 
the  main  thing  lacking  in  the  average  Christian.  James  uses  this  venerable 
word  with  all  the  associations  of  its  use  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  in  all 
the  solemn  depth  of  meaning  which  he  had  learned  to  attach  to  it,  on  the 
lips  of  psalmists,  prophets,  and  teachers  of  the  true  wisdom.  If  that  were 
at  all  doubtful,  it  is  made  certain  by  his  own  subsequent  description  of 
"  wisdom."  He  says  that  it  is  "  from  above,"  and  then  goes  on  to  ascribe 
all  manner  of  moral  and  spiritual  good  to  its  presence  and  working  on  a 
man.  It  is  "pure,  peaceable,  gentle,  easy  to  be  entreated,  full  of  mercy 
and  good  fruits."  You  cannot  say  such  glowing  things  about  the  wisdom 
which  has  its  scat  in  the  understanding  only,  can  )'0u?  These  character- 
istics must  apply  to  something  a  great  deal  more  aujust  and  more  powerful 
in  shaping  and  refininij;  character. 

12S 


THE  CONSCIOUSNESS  OF  GOD'S  PRESENCE. 

/  will  dwell  in  the  house  of  the  Lord  for  ever. — Psalm  xxiii,  6. 

What  the  Psalmist  desires  is  that  he  should  be  able  to  keep 
up  unbroken  consciousness  of  being  in  God's  presence,  and 
should  be  always  in  touch  with  Him.  That  seems  hard,  and  people  say, 
"Impossible  !  How  can  I  get  above  my  daily  work,  and  be  perpetually 
thinking  of  God  and  His  will,  and  realising  consciously  communion  with 
Him  ?  "  But  there  is  such  a  thing  as  having  an  under-current  of  conscious- 
ness running  all  through  a  man's  life  and  mind  ;  such  a  thing  as  having  a 
melody  sounding  in  our  ears  perpetually,  "so  sweet  we  know  not  we  are 
listening  to  it "  until  it  stops,  and  then,  by  the  poverty  of  the  naked  and 
silent  atmosphere,  we  know  how  sweet  were  the  sounds  that  we  scarcely 
knew  we  heard,  and  yet  did  hear  so  well  high  above  all  the  din  of  earth's 
noises. 

Every  man  that  has  ever  cherished  such  an  aspiration  as  this  does 
know  the  difficulties  all  too  well.  And  yet,  without  entering  upon  thorny 
and  unprofitable  questions  as  to  whether  the  absolute,  unbroken  continuity 
of  consciousness  of  being  in  God's  presence  is  possible  for  men  here  below, 
let  us  look  at  the  question,  which  has  a  great  deal  more  bearing  upon  our 
present  condition — viz.,  whether  a  greater  continuity  of  that  consciousness 
is  not  possible  than  we  attain  to  to-day.  It  does  seem  to  me  to  be  a 
foolish  and  miserable  waste  of  time  and  temper  and  energy  for  good 
people  to  be  quarrelling  about  whether  they  can  come  to  the  absolute 
realisation  of  this  desire  in  this  world  when  there  is  not  one  of  them  that 
is  not  leagues  below  the  possible  realisation  of  it,  and  knows  that  he  is. 
At  all  events,  whether  or  not  the  line  can  be  drawn  without  a  break  at  all, 
the  breaks  may  be  a  great  deal  shorter  and  a  great  deal  less  frequent  than 
they  are.  An  unbroken  line  of  conscious  communion  with  God  is  the 
ideal ;  and  that  is  what  this  singer  wanted  and  worked  for.  How  many 
of  my  feelings  and  thoughts  to-day,  or  of  the  things  that  1  have  said  and 
done  since  I  woke  this  morning,  would  have  been  done  and  said  and  felt 
exactly  the  same  if  there  were  not  a  God  at  all,  or  if  it  did  not  matter  in 
the  least  whether  I  ever  came  into  touch  with  Him  or  not  ?  Oh  !  dear 
friend,  it  is  no  vain  effort  to  bring  out  lives  a  little  bit  nearer  unbroken 
continuity  of  communion  with  Him.  And  God  knows,  and  eacli  for 
himself  knows,  how  much  and  how  sore  our  need  is  of  such  a  union. 
"  One  thing  have  I  desired,  that  will  I  seek  after  ;  that  I,"  in  my  study  ; 
I,  in  my  shop  ;  I,  in  my  parlour,  kitchen,  or  nursery  ;  I,  in  my  studio  ; 
I,  in  my  lecture-hall — "may  dwell  in  the  house  of  the  Lord  all  the  days 
of  my  life."  In  our  "Father's  house  are  many  mansions."  The  room 
that  we  spend  most  of  our  lives  in,  each  of  us  at  our  tasks  or  our  work- 
tables,  may  be  in  our  Father's  house,  too ;  and  it  is  only  we  that  can 
secure  that  it  shall  be. 

129  K 


DESIRE   FOR  GOD. 

We  shall  be  satisfied  with  the  goodness  of  Thy  house,  the  holy  place  of 
Thy  ttniple. — Psalm  Ixv.  4. 

jg.  g  The  inmost  meaning  of  the  Psalmist's  desire  is  that  the  con- 
'  sciousness  of  God  shall  be  diffused  throughout  the  whole  of  a 
man's  days,  instead  of  being  coagulated  here  and  there  at  points.  The 
Australian  rivers  in  a  drought  present  a  picture  of  the  Christian  life  of  far 
too  many  of  us — a  stagnant,  slinking  pool  here,  a  stretch  of  blinding  gravel 
there  ;  another  little  drop  of  water  a  mile  away,  then  a  long  line  of 
foul-smelling  mud,  and  then  another  little  pond.  Why  !  it  ought  to  run 
in  a  clear  stream — that  has  a  scour  in  it,  and  that  will  take  all  filth  off  the 
surface. 

The  Psalmist  wanted  to  break  down  the  distinction  between  sacred  and 
secular  ;  to  consecrate  work,  of  whatsoever  sort  it  was.  He  had  learned 
what  so  many  of  us  need  to  learn  far  more  thoroughly,  that  if  our  religion 
does  not  drive  the  wheels  of  our  daily  business,  it  is  of  little  use  ;  and  that 
if  the  field  in  which  our  religion  has  power  to  control  and  impel  is  not  that 
of  the  trivialities  and  secularities  of  our  ordinary  life,  there  is  no  field  for  it 
at  all. 

"  All  the  days  of  my  life  ! " — Not  only  on  Sundays  ;  not  for  five  minutes 
in  the  morning,  when  I  am  eager  to  get  to  my  daily  work,  and  less  than 
five  minutes  at  night,  when  I  am  half  asleep,  but  through  the  long  day 
doing  this,  that,  and  the  other  thing  for  God,  and  by  God,  and  with  God, 
and  making  Him  the  motive  and  the  power  of  my  course,  and  the  companion 
to  heaven  !  And  if  we  have,  in  our  lives,  things  over  which  we  cannot 
make  the  sign  of  the  Cross,  the  sooner  we  get  rid  of  them  the  better.  And 
if  there  is  anything  in  our  daily  work,  or  in  our  characters,  about  which  we 
are  doubtful,  here  is  a  good  test :  does  it  seem  to  check  our  continual 
communion  with  God  as  a  ligature  round  the  wrist  might  do  the  continual 
flow  of  the  blood?  or  does  it  help  us  to  realise  His  presence?  If  the 
former,  let  us  have  no  more  to  do  with  it ;  if  the  latter,  let  us  seek  to 
increase  it. 

Modern  teachers  tell  us  that  the  religious  emotions  may  be  exercised, 
and  all  the  blessing  and  all  the  advantage  of  them  secured,  although  they 
are  not  directed  to  a  personal  God.  The  God  of  this  religion  without  a 
God  is,  according  to  some,  collective  humanity ;  according  to  others, 
a  vague  unknowable  ;  according  to  others,  nature,  or  the  physical  universe, 
which  can  call  forth  the  admiralion  and  dependence  and  suljmission,  which 
are  the  constituents  of  "religion."  But  all  that  is  "moonshine."  The 
only  real  religion  is  the  religion  v/hich  lays  a  believing  hand  on  Jesus  Christ 
as  the  Revealer  of  the  Father  and  the  Saviour  of  the  world  ;  and  sees  in 
Him  a  God  near  enough  to  be  known,  tender  enough  to  be  loved,  mighty 
enough  to  succour,  compassionate  enough  to  answer  and  to  forgive.  There 
can  be  no  substitute  for  the  living  God.  Reverence,  worship,  the  con- 
secration of  heart  and  hfe,  need  a  living  person  to  evoke  them,  and  deep 
beneath  all  other  necessities  and  cries  of  the  human  spirit  hes  this,  so 
tragically  misinterpreted  by  many  of  us  :  "  My  soul  thirsteth  for  God,  for 
the  living  God,"  who  is  made  known  to  us  in  the  fulness  of  His  gentleness 
and  Flis  power  in  the  person  and  face  of  Jesus  Christ. 

130 


DWELLING   IN   GOD'S   HOUSE. 

This  is  My  resting-place  for  ever:  here  will  I  dwell;  for  I  have  desired 
it.-' — Psalm  cxxxii.  14. 

jj      jrt     This  is  an  allusion  not  only,  as  I  think,  to  the  Temple,  but 
'    al30  tqfillie  Oriental  habit  of  irivins:  a  man  who  took  refui^e  in  the 


tent  of  the  s;:T?r^Tf' y,uest-riles  of  protection  and  provision  and  friendship. 
The  habit  exists  to  this  day,  and  travellers  among  the  Bedouin  tell  us 
lovely  stories  of  how  even  an  enemy  with  the  blood  of  the  closest  relative 
of  the  owner  of  the  tent  on  his  hands,  if  he  can  once  get  in  there  and 
partake  of  the  salt  of  the  host,  is  safe,  and  the  first  obligation  of  the  owner 
of  the  tent  is  to  watch  over  the  life  of  the  fugitive  as  over  his  own. 

So  the  Psalmist  says  in  one  place,  "  I  desire  to  have  guest-rites  in  Thy 
tent ;  to  lift  up  its  fold,  and  shelter  there  from  the  heat  of  the  desert. 
And  although  I  be  dark,  and  stained  with  many  evils  and  transgressions 
against  Thee,  yet  I  come  to  claim  the  hospitality  and  provision  and 
protection  and  friendship  which  the  laws  of  the  house  do  bestow  upon  a 
guest."  Carrj'-ing  out  substantially  the  same  idea,  Paul  tells  the  Ephesians, 
as  if  it  were  the  very  highest  privilege  that  the  (xospel  brought  to  the 
Gentiles:  *'Ye  are  no  more  strangers,  but  fellow-citizens  with  the  saints, 
and  of  the  household  of  God''''  ;  incorporated  into  Plis  household,  and 
dwelling  safely  in  His  pavilion  as  their  home.  That  is  to  say,  the  blessed- 
ness of  keeping  up  such  a  continual  consciousness  of  touch  with  God  is, 
first  and  foremost,  the  certainty  of  infallible  protection.  Oh  !  how  it 
minimises  all  trouble,  and  brightens  all  joys,  and  calms  amidst  all  dis- 
tractions, and  steadies  and  sobers  in  all  circumstances,  to  feel  ever  the 
hand  of  God  upon  us  !  He  who  goes  through  life  finding  that,  when  he 
has  trouble  to  meet,  it  throws  him  back  on  God,  and  that,  when  bright 
mornings  of  joy  drive  away  nights  of  weeping,  these  wake  morning  songs 
of  praise  and  are  brightest  because  they  shine  with  the  light  of  a  Father's 
love,  will  never  be  unduly  moved  by  any  vicissitudes  of  fortune.  Like 
some  inland  and  sheltered  valley,  with  great  mountains  shutting  it  in,  that 
•'heareth  not  the  loud  winds  when  they  call"  beyond  the  barriers  that 
enclose  it,  our  lives  may  be  tranquilly  free  from  distraction,  and  may  be 
full  of  peace,  of  nobleness,  and  of  strength,  on  condition  of  our  keeping  in 
God's  house  all  the  days  of  our  lives. 

Trust  brings  rest,  because  it  casts  all  our  burdens  on  another.  Every 
act  of  reliance,  though  it  does  not  deliver  from  responsibility,  delivers  from 
anxiety.  We  see  that  even  when  the  object  of  our  trust  is  but  a  poor 
creature  like  ourselves.  Husbands  and  wives  who  find  settled  peace  in  one 
another,  parents  and  children,  patrons  and  protected,  and  a  whole  series 
of  other  relationships  in  life,  are  witnesses  to  the  fact  that  the  attitude  of 
rehance  brings  the  actuality  of  repose.  A  little  child  goes  to  sleep  beneath 
its  mother's  eye,  and  is  tranquil,  not  only  because  it  is  ignorant,  but  because 
it  is  trustful.  So,  if  we  will  only  get  behind  the  shelter,  the  blast  will  not 
blow  about  us,  but  we  shall  be  in  what  they  call  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
Tweed — in  a  word  that  is  music  in  the  ears  of  some  of  us  — a  "  lown  place," 
where  we  hear  not  the  loud  winds  when  they  call.  Trust  is  rest ;  even 
when  we  lean  upon  an  arm  of  flesh,  though  that  trust  is  often  disappointed. 
"What  is  the  depth  of  the  repose  that  comes  not  from  trust  that  leans  against 
something  supposed  to  be  a  steadfast  oak,  that  proves  to  be  a  broken  reed,  but 
against  the  Rock  of  Ages  I     We  which  have  "believed  do  enter  into  rest." 

131 


UNION  WITH  GOD. 

Whoso  hearkciieth  unto  Me  shall  dwell  safely,  and  shall  be  quiet  from  fear 
of  evil. — Prov.  i.  33. 

The  God  whom  men  know,  or  think  they  know,  outside  of  the 
^  *  revelation  of  Divinity  in  Jesus  Christ,  is  a  God  before  whom 
they  sometimes  tremble,  who  is  far  more  often  their  terror  than  their  love, 
who  is  their  "ghastliest  doubt"  still  more  frequently  than  He  is  their 
dearest  faith.  But  the  God  that  is  in  Christ  wooes  and  wins  men  to  Him, 
and  from  His  great  sweetness  there  streams  out,  as  it  were,  a  magnetic 
influence  that  draws  hearts  to  Him.  He  has  made  "the  rough  places 
plain  and  the  crooked  things  straight "  ;  levelled  the  mountains  and  raised 
the  valleys,  and  cast  up  across  all  the  wilderness  of  the  world  a  highway 
along  which  "the  wayfaring  man,  though  a  fool,"  may  travel.  Narrow 
understandings  may  know,  and  selfish  hearts  may  love,  and  low-pitched 
confessions  may  reach  the  ear  of,  the  God  who  comes  near  to  us  in  Christ, 
that  we  in  Christ  may  come  near  to  Him.  The  breaker  is  gone  up 
before  us.  "  Having  therefore,  brethren,  boldness  to  enter  into  the  holiest 
of  all  ...  by  a  new  and  living  way,  which  He  hath  consecrated  for 
us,  .  .  .  let  us  draw  near  with  true  hearts." 

One  of  the  blessings  that  come  to  the  dweller  in  God's  house,  and  not 
a  small  one,  is  that,  by  the  power  of  this  one  satisfied  longing,  driven  like 
an  iron  rod  through  all  the  tortuosities  of  my  life,  there  will  come  into  it 
a  unity  which  otherwise  few  lives  are  ever  able  to  attain,  and  the  want  of 
which  is  no  small  cause  of  the  misery  that  is  great  upon  men.  Most  of  us 
seem,  to  our  own  consciousness,  to  live  amidst  endless  distractions  all  our 
days,  and  our  lives  to  be  a  heap  of  links  parted  from  each  other  rather  than 
a  chain.  But  if  we  have  that  one  constant  thought  with  us,  and  if  we  are, 
through  all  the  variety  of  occupations,  true  to  the  one  purpose  of  serving 
and  keeping  near  God,  then  we  have  a  charm  against  the  frittering  away 
of  our  lives  in  distractions,  and  the  misery  of  multiplicity,  and  we  enter 
into  the  blessedness  of  unity  and  singleness  of  purpose;  and  our  lives  become, 
like  the  starry  heavens  in  all  the  variety  of  their  motions,  ol:)edient  to  one 
impulse.  For  unity  in  a  life  does  not  depend  upon  the  monotony  of  its 
tasks,  but  upon  the  simplicity  of  the  motive  which  impels  to  all  varieties  of 
work.  So  it  is  possible  for  a  man  harassed  by  multitudinous  avocations, 
and  drawn  hither  and  thither  by  sometimes  apparently  conflicting  and 
always  bewildering,  rapidly-following  duties,  to  say,  "This  one  thing  I 
do,"  if  all  his  doings  are  equally  acts  of  obedience  to  God. 

132 


GUESTS  OF  GOD 

Oite  thing  have  I  asked  of  the  Lord,  that  will  I  seek  after;  that  I  may 
dwell  in  the  house  of  the  Lord  all  the  days  of  my  life. — PsAl.M  xxvii.  4. 

"One  thing  have  I fl'<fj/y.;a^,  .  .  .  that  will  I  j;?,?/^ after. "  There 
*^  *  are  two  points  to  be  kept  in  view  to  that  end.  A  great  many 
people  say,  "One  thing  have  I  desired,"  and  fail  in  persistent  continuous- 
ness  of  the  desire.  No  man  gets  rights  of  residence  in  God's  house  for 
a  longer  time  than  he  continues  to  seek  for  them.  The  most  advanced  of 
us,  and  those  that  have  longest  been  like  Anna,  who  "departed  not  from 
the  temple  "  day  nor  night,  will  certainly  eject  ourselves,  unless,  like  the 
Psalmist,  we  use  the  verbs  in  both  tenses,  and  say,  "One  thing  have  I 
desired,  .  .  .  that  will  I  seek  after."  John  Bunyan  saw  that  there  was 
a  back  door  to  the  lower  regions  close  by  the  gates  of  the  Celestial  City. 
There  may  be  men  who  have  long  lived  beneath  the  shadow  of  the 
sanctuary,  and  at  the  last  shall  be  found  outside  the  gates. 

But  the  words  not  only  suggest  by  the  two  tenses  of  the  verbs  the 
continuity  of  the  desire  which  is  destined  to  be  granted,  but  also  by  the 
two  verbs  themselves — desire  and  seek  after — the  necessity  of  uniting  prayer 
and  work.  Many  desires  are  unsatisfied  because  conduct  does  not  corre- 
spond to  desires.  Many  a  prayer  for  greater  holiness  and  closer  communion 
with  God  remains  unanswered  because  its  pray-ers  never  do  a  thing  to  fulfil 
their  prayers.  I  do  not  say  they  are  hypocrites  ;  certainly  they  are  not 
consciously  so,  but  I  do  say  that  there  is  a  large  measure  of  conventionality 
that  means  nothing  in  the  prayers  of  average  Christian  people  for  more 
holiness  and  likeness  to  Jesus  Christ. 

If  we  want  this  desire  of  dwelling  in  the  house  of  the  Lord  to  be 
fulfilled,  the  day's  work  must  run  in  the  same  direction  as  the  morning's 
petition,  and  we  must,  like  the  Psalmist,  say,  "  I  have  desired  it  of  the 
Lord,  and  I,  for  my  part,  will  seek  after  it.^'  Then,  whether  or  not  we 
reach  absolutely  to  the  standard,  which  is  none  the  less  to  be  aimed  at, 
though  it  seems  beyond  reach,  we  shall  draw  nearer  and  nearer  to  it,  and, 
God  helping  our  weakness  and  increasing  our  strength,  quickening  us  to 
"  desire,"  and  upholding  us  to  "  seek  after,"  we  may  hope  that,  when  the 
days  of  our  life  are  past,  we  shall  but  remove  into  an  upper  chamber,  more 
open  to  the  sunrise  and  flooded  with  light,  and  shall  go  no  more  out,  but 
"  dwell  in  the  house  of  the  Lord  for  ever." 

133 


TRUE  AND  FALSE  SORROW  FOR  SIN. 

Godly  sorrow  worketh  repentance  unto  salvation,  a  repentance  which 
bringeth  no  regret:  but  the  sorrow  of  the  world  worketh  death, — 2  CoR. 
vii.  I  a 

There  is  a  broad  distinction  between  the  right  and  the  wrong 

*^  '  kind  of  sorrow  for  sin.  **  Godly  sorrow"  is  literally  rendered 
** sorrow  according  to  Gody''  which  may  either  mean  sorrow  which  has 
reference  to  God,  or  sorrow  which  is  in  accordance  with  His  will ;  that  is 
to  say,  which  is  pleasing  to  Him.  If  it  is  the  former,  it  will  be  the  latter. 
I  prefer  to  suppose  that  it  is  the  former  sorrow,  which  has  reference  to  God. 

And  then,  opposite  to  that,  there  is  another  kind  of  sorrow,  which  the 
Apostle  calls  the  "sorrow  of  the  world,"  which  is  devoid  of  that  reference 
to  God.  Here  we  have  the  characteristic  difference  between  the  Christian 
way  of  looking  at  my  own  faults  and  shortcomings,  and  the  sorrow  of  the 
world,  which  has  got  no  blessing  in  it,  and  will  never  lead  to  anything  like 
righteousness  and  peace.  It  is  just  this — one  has  reference  to  God,  puts 
its  sin  by  His  side,  sees  its  blackness  relieved  against  the  "fierce  light"  of 
the  Great  White  Throne,  and  the  other  way  has  not  that  reference. 

To  expand  that  for  a  moment,  there  are  plenty  of  us  that,  when  our 
sin  is  behind  us,  and  its  bitter  fruits  are  in  our  hands,  are  sorry  enough  for 
our  faults.  A  man  that  is  lying  in  the  hospital,  a  wreck,  with  the  sin  of 
his  youth  gnawing  the  flesh  off  his  bones,  is  often  enough  sorry  that  he  did 
not  live  more  soberly  and  chastely  and  temperately  in  the  past  days.  That 
fraudulent  bankrupt  that  has  not  got  his  discharge,  and  has  lost  his  reputa- 
tion, and  can  get  nobody  to  lend  him  money  enough  to  start  himself  in 
business  again,  as  he  hangs  about  the  streets  slouching  in  his  rags,  is  sorry 
enough  that  he  did  not  keep  the  straight  road.  The  "  sorrow  of  the  world  " 
has  no  thought  about  God  in  it  at  all.  The  consequences  or  sin  set  many 
a  man's  teeth  on  edge  that  does  not  leel  any  compunction  for  the  wrong 
that  he  did.     My  brother,  is  that  your  position  ? 

And  then  we  can  come  a  step  further.  Crime  means  the  transgression 
of  man's  law  ;  wrong  means  the  transgression  of  conscience's  law.  Some 
of  us  would  perhaps  have  to  say,  **  I  have  done  crime."  We  are  all  of  us 
quite  ready  to  say,  "  I  have  done  wrong  many  a  time  "  ;  but  there  are 
some  of  you  that  hesitate  to  take  the  other  step,  and  say,  **  I  have  done 
sin,"  which  is  the  transgression  of  God's  law. 

134 


SIN  AND   GOD. 

/  zvill  be  tmrciftil  to  their  iniquities^  and  their  sins  will  I  remember  no 
more. — Heb.  viii.  12. 

Six  has,  for  its  correlative,  God.  If  there  is  no  God,  there  is  no 
'  sin.  There  may  be  faults,  there  may  be  failures,  there  may  be 
transgression,  breaches  of  the  moral  law,  things  done  inconsistent  with 
man's  nature  and  constitution,  and  so  on  ;  but  if  there  be  a  God,  then  we 
have  personal  relations  to  that  Person  and  His  law  ;  and  when  we  break 
His  law,  it  is  more  than  crime  ;  it  is  more  than  fault  ;  it  is  more  than 
transgression ;  it  is  more  than  wrong  ;  it  is  sin  ;  and  it  is  when  you  lift 
the  shutter  off  conscience,  and  let  the  light  of  God  rush  in  upon  your  hearts 
and  consciences,  that  you  have  the  wholesome  sorrow  that  worketh  repent- 
ance and  salvation  and  life. 

Oh,  dear  friend,  I  do  beseech  you  to  lay  these  simple  thoughts  to 
heart  !  Remember,  I  am  urging  no  rigid  uniformity  of  experience  or 
character,  but  I  am  saying  that  unless  a  man  has  learned  to  see  his  sin 
in  the  light  of  God,  and  in  the  light  of  God  to  weep  over  it,  he  has  yet  to 
know  "  the  straight  gate  that  leadeth  unto  life." 

I  believe  that  a  very  large  amount  of  the  superficiality  and  easy- 
goingness  of  the  Christianity  of  to-day  comes  just  from  this,  that  so  many  who 
call  themselves  Christians,  that  profess  it,  have  never  once  got  a  glimpse  of 
themselves.  I  remember  once  holding  on  by  the  ground  on  the  top  of 
Vesuvius,  and  looking  full  into  the  crater,  all  swirling  with  sulphurous 
fumes.  Have  you  ever  looked  into  your  hearts  like  that,  and  seen  the 
wreathing  smoke  and  the  flashing  fire  that  are  there  ?  If  you  have,  you  will 
cleave  to  that  Christ  who  is  your  sole  deliverance  from  sin. 

But,  remember,  there  is  no  prescription  about  depth  or  amount  or 
length  of  time  during  which  this  sorrow  shall  be  felt.  If,  on  the  one  hand, 
it  is  essential,  on  the  other  hand  there  are  a  great  many  people  that  ought 
to  be  walking  in  the  light  and  the  liberty  of  God's  Gospel  who  bring  dark- 
ness and  clouds  over  themselves  by  the  anxious  scrutinising  question,  "  Is 
my  sorrow  deep  enough  ?  " 

Deep  enough  1  What  for  ?  What  is  the  use  of  sorrow  for  sin  ?  To 
lead  a  man  to  repentance  and  to  faith.  If  you  have  got  as  much  sorrow  as 
leads  you  to  penitence  and  trust,  you  have  got  enough.  It  is  not  your 
sorrow  that  is  going  to  wash  away  your  sin  ;  it  is  Christ's  blood.  So  let  no 
man  trouble  himself  about  the  question,  Have  I  sorrow  enough  ?  The  one 
question  is,  "  Has  my  sorrow  led  me  to  cast  myself  on  Christ  ?" 

135 


SORROW   ACCORDING   TO   GOD. 

And  David  said  uuto  Nathan,  I  have  sinned  against  the  Lord.  And 
Ka'han  said  unto  David,  The  Lord  also  hath  put  away  thy  sin. — 
2  Sam.  xii.  13. 

^  jg  In  2  Corinthians  vii.  10  the  Apostle  Paul  takes  it  for  granted 
that  a  recognition  of  my  own  evil  and  a  consequent  peniienl  regret- 
fulness  lies  at  the  foundation  of  all  true  Cliristianity.  Now,  I  do  not  want 
to  insist  upon  any  uniformity  of  experience  in  people,  any  more  than  I 
should  insist  that  all  their  bodies  should  be  of  one  shape  or  of  one  pro- 
portion. Human  lives  are  infinitely  different,  human  dispositions  are 
subtly  varied  ;  and  because  both  one  and  the  other  are  never  reproduced 
exactly  in  any  two  peo]")]e,  therefore  the  religious  experience  of  no  two 
souls  can  ever  be  precisely  alike. 

We  have  no  right  to  ask — and  much  harm  has  been  done  by  asking — 
for  an  impossible  uniformity  of  re  igious  experience.  You  can  print  off  as 
many  copies  as  you  like,  for  instance,  of  a  drawing  of  a  flower,  on  a  print- 
ing press,  and  they  shall  ail  be  alike,  petal  for  petal,  leaf  for  leaf,  shade 
for  shade  ;  but  no  two  hand-drawn  copies  will  be  so  precisely  alike,  still 
less  will  any  two  of  the  real  buds  that  blow  on  the  bush  there.  Life 
produces  resemblance  with  difl'erences  ;  it  is  machinery  that  makes  fac- 
similes. 

So  we  insist  on  no  pedantic  or  unreal  uniformity  ;  and  yet,  whilst 
leaving  the  widest  scope  for  divergencies  of  individual  character  and 
experience,  and  not  asking  that  a  man  all  diseased  and  blotched  with  the 
leprosy  of  sin  for  halt  a  lifetime,  and  a  little  child  that  has  grown  up  at  its 
mother's  knee,  "  in  the  nurture  and  admonition  of  the  Lord,"  and  "so  has 
been  saved  innocent  of  much  transgression,"  shall  have  the  same  ex- 
perience,— yet  Scripture,  as  it  seems  to  me,  and  the  nature  of  the  case  do 
unite  in  asserting  that  there  are  certain  elements  which,  in  varying  pro- 
portions indeed,  will  be  found  in  all  true  Christian  experience,  and  of  these 
an  indispensable  one — and  in  a  very  large  number,  if  not  in  the  majority 
of  cases,  a  fundamental  one — is  this  which  Paul  calls  "godly  sorrow." 

Surely  a  reasonable  consideration  of  the  facts  of  our  conduct  and  char- 
acter point  to  that  as  the  attitude  that  becomes  you  and  me  !  Does  it  not  ? 
I  do  not  charge  you  with  crimes,  as  the  law  interprets  them.  I  do  not 
suppose  that  many  who  read  these  lines  are  living  in  flagrant  disregard 
of  the  elementary  principles  of  common  every-day  morality.  There  are 
some,  no  doubt.  Tliere  are,  no  doubt,  unclean  men  ;  there  are  some  who 
eat  and  drink  more  than  is  good  for  them  habitually  ;  there  are,  no  doubt, 
men  and  women  that  are  living  in  avarice  and  worldliness,  and  things  that 
the  ordinary  consciences  of  the  populace  point  to  as  faults  and  blemishes. 
But  I  appeal  to  the  so-called  respectable  people,  that  can  say  :  "I  am  not 
as  other  men  are,  unjust,  adulterers,  or  even  as  this  publican."  I  come 
to  you,  and  I  have  this  one  question  to  put  to  you  :  Looking  at  your 
character  all  round,  in  the  light  of  the  purity  and  righteousness  and  love 
of  God,  how  say  ye — "guilty  or  not  guilty,"  sinful  or  not  sinful? 

Be  honest  with  yourself,  and  the  answer  will  not  be  far  to  seek. 

136 


THE   LAW   OF   LIFE. 

PVa/k  worthily  of  God,  who  calleth  you  into  His  own  kingdom  and  glory. 
— I  Thess.  ii.  12. 

Here  we  have  the  whole  law  of  Christian  conduct  in  a  nutshell. 

*^  ■  There  may  be  many  detailed  commandments,  but  they  can  all 
he  deduced  from  this  one.  We  are  lifted  up  above  the  region  of  petty 
prescriptions,  and  breathe  a  bracing  mountain  air.  Instead  of  regulations, 
very  many  and  very  dry,  we  have  a  principle  which  needs  thought  and 
sympathy  in  order  to  apply  it,  and  is  to  be  carried  out  by  the  free  action  of 
our  own  judgments.  The  whole  sum  of  Christian  duty  lies  in  conformity 
to  the  character  of  a  Divine  Person  with  whom  we  have  loving  relations. 

The  Old  Testament  says  :  "Be  ye  holy,  for  I  the  Lord  your  God  am 
holy."  The  New  Testament  says  :  "  Be  ye  imitators  of  God,  and  walk  in 
love."  So  then,  whatever  in  that  Divine  nature  of  flashing  brightness  and 
infinite  profundity  is  far  beyond  our  apprehension  and  grasp,  there  are  in 
that  Divine  nature  elements — and  those  the  best  and  divinest  in  it — which 
it  is  perfectly  within  the  power  of  every  man  to  copy. 

Is  there  anything  in  God  that  is  more  God-like  than  righteousness  and 
love  ?  And  is  there  any  difference  in  essence  between  a  man's  righteous- 
ness and  God's — between  a  man's  love  and  God's?  The  same  gases 
make  combustion  in  the  sun  and  on  the  earth,  and  the  spectroscope  tells 
you  that  it  is  so.  The  same  radiant  brightness  that  flames  burning  in  the 
love,  and  flashes  white  in  the  purity  of  God,  that  may  be  reproduced  n 
man. 

Love  is  one  thing  all  the  universe  over.  Other  elements  of  the  bond 
that  unites  us  to  God  are  rather  correspondent  in  us  to  what  we  find  in 
Him.  Our  concavity,  so  to  speak,  answers  to  His  convexity  ;  our  hollow- 
ness  to  His  fulness  ;  our  emptiness  to  Flis  all-sufficiency.  So  our  faith,  for 
instance,  lays  hold  upon  His  faithfulness,  and  our  obedience  grasps,  and 
bows  before.  His  commanding  will.  But  the  love  with  which  I  lay  hold 
of  Him  is  like  the  love  with  which  He  lays  hold  on  me ;  and  righteousness 
and  purity,  howsoever  different  may  be  their  accompaniments  in  an  Infinite 
and  uncreated  Nature  from  what  they  have  in  our  limited  and  bounded  and 
progressing  being,  in  essence  are  one.  So,  "  Be  ye  holy,  for  I  am  holy"  ; 
"Walk  in  the  light,  as  He  is  in  the  light,"  is  the  law  available  for  all 
conduct ;  and  the  highest  Divine  perfections,  if  I  may  speak  of  pre- 
eminence among  them,  are  the  imitable  ones,  whereby  He  becomes  our 
Example  and  our  Pattern. 

X37 


THE   CHRISTIAN    IDEAL. 

On'y  let  your  manner  of  life   be  worthy  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ. — 
PiiiL.  i.   27. 

I^ET  no  man  say  that  such  an  injunction  is  vague  or  hopeless. 

You  must  have  a  perfect  ideal  if  you  are  to  live  at  all  by  an 
ideal.  There  cannot  be  any  flaws  in  your  pattern  if  the  pattern  is  to  be  of 
any  use.  You  aim  at  the  stars,  and  if  you  do  not  hit  them  you  may  pro- 
gressively approach  them.  We  need  absolute  perfection  to  strain  after, 
and  one  day — blessed  be  His  Name  ! — we  shall  attain  it.  Try  to  walk 
worthy  of  God,  and  you  will  find  out  how  tight  that  precept  grips,  and  how 
close  it  fits. 

The  love  and  the  righteousness  which  are  to  become  the  law  of  our 
lives  are  revealed  to  us  in  Jesus  Christ.  Whatever  may  sound  im- 
practicable in  the  injunction  to  imitate  God  assumes  a  more  homely  and 
possible  shape  when  it  becomes  an  injunction  to  follow  Jesus.  And  just 
as  that  form  of  the  precept  tends  to  make  the  law  of  conformity  to  the 
Divine  nature  more  blessed  and  less  hopelessly  above  us,  so  it  makes 
the  law  of  conformity  to  some  mere  ideal  of  goodness  less  cold  and  un- 
sympathetic. It  makes  all  the  difference  to  our  joyfulness  and  freedom 
whether  we  are  trying  to  obey  a  law  of  duty,  seen  only  too  clearly  to  be 
binding,  but  also  above  our  reach,  or  whether  we  have  the  law  in  a  living 
Person  whom  we  have  learned  to  love.  In  the  one  case  there  stands  upon 
a  pedestal  above  us  a  cold  perfection,  white,  complete,  marble  ;  in  the 
other  case  there  stands  beside  us  a  living  law  in  pattern,  a  Brother,  bone 
of  our  bone  and  flesh  of  our  flesh,  whose  hand  we  can  grasp,  whose 
heart  we  can  trust,  and  of  whose  help  we  can  be  sure.  To  say  to  me, 
"  Follow  the  ideal  of  perfect  righteousness,"  is  to  relegate  me  to  a  dreary, 
endless  struggling  ;  to  say  to  me,  '*  Follow  your  Brother,  and  be  like  your 
Father,"  is  to  bring  warmih  and  hope  and  liberty  into  all  my  effort.  The 
word  that  says,  "Walk  worthy  of  God,"  is  a  royal  law,  the  perfect  law 
of  perfect  freedom. 

When  we  say,  "  Walk  worthy  of  God,"  we  mean  two  things — one, 
**  Do  after  His  example,"  and  the  other,  "  Render  back  to  Ilim  what  He 
deserves  for  what  He  has  done  to  you."  And  so  this  law  bids  us  measure, 
by  the  side  of  that  great  love  that  died  on  the  Cross  for  us  all,  our  poor, 
imperfect  returns  of  gratitude  and  of  service.  He  has  lavished  all  His 
treasure  on  you  ;  what  have  you  l^rought  Him  back  ?  He  has  given  you 
the  whole  wealth  of  His  tender  pity,  of  His  forgiving  mercy,  of  His  infinite 
goodness.  Do  you  adequately  repay  such  lavish  love  ?  Has  He  not 
"  sown  much  and  reaped  little  "  in  your  heart  ?  Has  He  not  poured  out 
the  fulness  of  His  affection,  and  have  we  not  answered  Him  with  a  few 
gru.ljing  drops  squeezed  from  our  hearts? 

138 


THE   ONE  RULE   OF  CONDUCT. 

"  Be  ye  therefore  initiators  of  God,  as  beloved  children  ;  and  ivaJk  in  love, 
even  as  Christ  also  loved  you,  and  gave  Himself  up  for  us." — Eph.  v.  I,  2. 

People  have  always  been  apt  to  think  of  the  Gospel  more  as  a 

message  of  deliverance  than  as  a  practical  guide.     And  we  all 

need  to  make  an  effort  to  prevent  our  natural  indolence  and  selfishness 

from  making  us  forget  that  the  Gospel  is  quite  as  much  a  rule  of  conduct  as 

a  message  of  pardon. 

It  is  both  by  the  same  act.  In  the  very  facts  on  which  our  redemption 
depends  lies  the  law  of  our  lives.  Do  not  always  be  looking  at  Christ's 
Cross  only  as  your  means  of  acceptance.  Do  not  only  be  thinking  of 
Christ's  Passion  as  that  which  has  barred  for  you  the  gates  of  punish- 
ment, and  has  opened  for  you  the  gates  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  It 
has  done  all  that ;  but  if  you  are  going  to  stop  there,  you  have  only  got 
hold  of  a  very  maimed  and  imperfect  edition  of  the  Gospel.  The  Cross 
is  your  patlern,  as  well  as  the  anchor  of  your  hope  and  the  ground 
of  your  salvation — if  it  is  anything  at  all  to  you.  And  it  is  not  the 
ground  of  your  salvation  and  the  anchor  of  your  hope  unless  it  is  your 
pattern.     It  is  the  one  in  exactly  the  same  degree  in  which  it  is  the  other. 

So  all  self-pleasing,  all  harsh  insistence  on  your  own  claims,  all  neglect 
of  suffering  and  sorrow  and  sin  around  you,  comes  under  the  lash  of  this 
condemnation.  If  Christian  men  and  women  would  only  learn  to  take 
away  the  scales  from  their  eyes  and  souls, — not  looking  at  Christ's  Cross 
with  less  absolute  trustfulness,  as  that  by  which  all  their  salvation  comes, 
but  also  learning  to  look  at  it  as  closely  and  habitually  as  yielding  the 
pattern  to  which  their  lives  should  be  conformed, — and  would  let  the  heart- 
melting  thankfulness  which  it  evokes  when  gazed  at  as  the  ground  of  our 
hope  prove  itself  true  by  its  leading  them  to  an  effort  at  imitating  that  great 
love,  and  so  walking  worthy  of  the  Gospel,  how  their  lives  would  be 
transformed  !  It  is  far  easier  to  fetter  your  life  with  yards  of  red-tape 
prescriptions — do  this,  do  not  do  that  ;  far  easier  to  out-pharisee  the 
Pharisees  in  punctilious  scrupulosities,  than  it  is  honestly,  and  for  one  hour, 
to  take  the  Cross  of  Christ  as  the  pattern  of  your  lives,  and  to  shape  your- 
selves by  that. 

One  looks  round  upon  a  lethargic,  a  luxurious,  a  self-indulgent,  a  self- 
seeking,  a  world-besotted  professing  Church,  and  asks,  "  Are  these  the 
people  on  whose  hearts  a  cross  is  stamped  ?  "  Do  these  men — or  rather  let 
us  say,  do  we  live  as  becometh  the  Gospel  which  proclaims  the  divinity  of 
self-sacrifice,  and  that  the  law  of  a  perfect  human  life  is  perfect  self-forget- 
fulness,  even  as  the  secret  of  the  Divine  nature  is  perfect  love  ?  "  Walk 
worthy  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ." 

139 


A  WORTHY    CALLING. 

By  this  shall  all  tnen  know  that  ye  are  My  disciples,  if  ye  have  love  one  to 
another. — John  xiii.  35. 

Men  that  are  called  to  high  functions  prepare  themselves 
therefore.  If  you  knew  that  you  were  going  away  to  Australia 
in  six  months,  would  you  not  be  beginning  to  get  your  outfit  ready  ?  You 
Christian  men  profess  to  believe  that  you  have  been  called  to  a  condition  in 
which  you  will  absolutely  obey  God's  will,  and  be  the  loyal  subjects  of 
His  Kingdom,  and  in  which  you  will  partake  of  God's  glory.  Well  then, 
obey  His  will  here,  and  let  some  scattered  sparklets  of  that  uncreated  light 
that  is  one  day  going  to  flood  your  soul  lie  upon  your  face  to-day.  Do  not 
go  and  cut  your  lives  into  two  halves,  one  of  them  all  contradictory  to 
that  which  you  expect  in  the  other,  but  bring  a  harmony  between  the 
present,  in  all  its  weakness  and  sinfulness,  and  that  great  hope  and  certain 
destiny  that  blazes  on  the  horizon  of  your  hope,  as  the  joyful  state  to 
which  you  have  been  invited.  "  Walk  worthy  of  the  calling  to  which  you 
are  called."  That  same  thought  of  the  destiny  should  feed  our  hope,  and 
make  us  live  under  its  continual  inspiration.  A  walk  worthy  of  such  a 
calling  and  such  a  Caller  should  know  no  despondency,  nor  any  weary, 
heartless  lingering,  as  with  tired  feet  on  a  hard  road.  Brave  good  cheer, 
undimmed  energy,  a  noble  contempt  of  obstacles,  a  confidence  in  our 
final  attainment  of  that  purity  and  glory  which  is  not  depressed  by  con- 
sciousness of  present  failure, — these  are  plainly  the  characteristics  which 
ought  to  mark  the  advance  of  the  men  in  whose  ears  such  a  summons  from 
such  lips  rings  as  their  marching  orders.  And  a  walk  worthy  of  our 
calling  will  turn  away  from  earthly  things.  If  you  believe  that  God  has 
summoned  you  to  His  Kingdom  and  glory,  surely,  surely,  that  should 
deaden  in  your  heart  the  love  and  the  care  for  the  trifles  that  lie  by  the 
wayside  !  Surely,  surely,  if  that  great  Voice  is  inviting,  and  that  merciful 
Hand  is  beckoning  you  into  the  light,  and  showing  you  what  you  may 
possess  there,  it  is  not  walking  according  to  that  summons  if  you  go  with 
your  eyes  fixed  upon  the  trifles  at  your  feet,  and  your  whole  heart  absorbed 
in  this  present  fleeting  world  !  Unworldliness,  in  its  best  and  purest 
fashion, — by  which  I  mean  not  only  a  contempt  for  material  wealth  and  all 
that  it  brings,  but  the  setting  loose  by  everything  that  is  beneath  the  stars, — 
unworldliness  is  the  only  walk  that  is  "  worthy  of  the  calling  wherewith  ye 
are  called." 

And  if  you  hear  that  voice  ringing  like  a  trumpet  call,  or  a  commander's 
shout  on  the  battlefield,  into  your  cars,  ever  to  stimu'ate  you,  to  rebuke 
your  lagging  indifference  ;  if  you  are  ever  conscious  in  your  inmost  hearts 
of  the  summons  to  His  Kingdom  and  glory,  then,  no  doubt,  by  a  walk 
worthy  of  it,  you  will  make  your  calling  sure  ;  and  there  shall  "an  entrance 
be  ministered  unto  you  abundantly  into  the  everlasting  Kangdom." 

140 


"CALLED  TO   BE  SAINTS." 

Beloved  of  God  ;  called  to  be  saints. —  Rom.  i.  *J, 

__  gjj  In  the  last  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  (verse  2),  we 
^  '  read  about  a  very  small  matter,  that  it  is  to  be  done  "  worthily 
of  the  saints."  It  is  only  about  the  receiving  of  a  good  woman  that  was 
travelling  from  Corinth  to  Rome,  and  extending  hospitality  to  her  in  such 
a  manner  as  became  professing  Christians  ;  but  the  very  minuteness  of  the 
details  to  which  the  great  principle  is  applied  points  a  iesson.  The  biggest 
principle  is  not  too  big  to  be  brought  down  to  the  narrowest  details,  and 
that  is  the  beauty  of  principles  as  distinguished  from  regulations.  Regula- 
tions try  to  be  minute,  and  however  minute  you  make  them,  some  case 
always  starts  up  that  is  not  exactly  provided  for  in  them.  And  so  the 
regulations  come  to  nothing.  A  principle  does  not  try  to  be  minute,  but 
it  casts  its  net  wide,  and  it  gathers  various  cases  into  its  meshes.  Like  the 
fabled  tent  in  the  old  legend,  that  could  contract  so  as  to  have  room  for 
but  one  man,  or  extend  wide  enough  to  hold  an  army  ;  so  this  great 
principle  of  Christian  conduct  can  be  brought  down  to  giving  '*  Phoebe 
our  sister,  who  is  a  servant  of  the  Church  at  Cenchrea,"  good  food  and  a 
comfortable  lodging,  and  any  other  little  kindnesses,  when  she  comes  to 
Rome.  And  the  same  principle  may  be  widened  out  to  embrace  and  direct 
us  in  the  largest  tasks  and  most  difficult  circumstances. 

*'  Worthily  of  saints  " — the  name  is  an  omen,  and  carries  in  it  rules  of 
conduct.  The  root  idea  of  "saint"  is  "one  separated  to  God,"  and  the 
secondary  idea  which  flows  from  that  is  "  one  who  is  pure  "  All  Christians 
are  "saints."  They  are  consecrated  and  set  apart  for  God's  service,  and 
in  the  degree  in  which  they  are  conscious  of  and  live  out  that  consecration, 
they  are  pure.  So  their  name,  or  rather  the  great  fact  which  their  name 
implies,  should  be  ever  before  them,  a  stimulus  and  a  law.  We  are  bound 
to  remember  that  we  are  consecrated,  separated  as  God's  possession,  and 
that  therefore  purity  is  indispensable.  The  continual  consciousness  of  this 
relation  and  its  resulting  obligations  would  make  us  recoil  from  impurity 
as  instinctively  as  the  sensitive  plant  shuts  up  its  little  green  fingers  when 
anything  touches  it ;  or  as  the  wearer  of  a  white  robe  will  draw  it  up 
high  above  the  mud  on  a  filthy  pavement.  Walk  "  worthily  of  saints"  is 
another  way  of  saying,  Be  true  to  your  own  best  selves.  Work  up  to  the 
highest  ideal  of  your  character.  That  is  far  more  wholesome  than  to  be 
always  looking  at  our  faults  and  failures,  which  depress  and  tempt  us  to 
think  that  the  actual  is  the  measure  of  the  possible,  and  the  past  or  present 
of  the  future.  There  is  no  fear  of  self-conceit  or  of  a  mistaken  estimate  of 
ourselves.  The  more  clearly  we  keep  our  best  and  deepest  self  before 
our  consciousness,  the  more  shall  we  learn  a  rigid  judgment  of  the 
miserable  contradictions  to  it  in  our  daily  outv/ard  life,  and  even  in  our 
thoughts  and  desires.  It  is  a  wholesome  exhortation,  when  it  follows 
these  others  of  which  we  have  been  speaking  (and  not  else),  which  bids 
Christians  remember  that  they  are  saints  and  live  up  to  their  name. 

141 


THE  ALL-COMPREHENSIVE  LAW. 

Except  your  righteousness  shall  exceed  the  righteousness  of  the  Scribes 
and  Pharisees,  ye  shall  in  no  wise  enter  into  the  Kingduin  of  Heaven.-^ 
Matt.  v.  20. 

■vt  2\  ^  Christian's  inward  and  deepest  self  is  better  than  his  out- 
'  ward  life.  We  have  all  convictions  in  our  inmost  hearts  which 
we  do  not  work  out,  and  beliefs  that  do  not  influence  us  as  we  know  they 
ought  to  do,  and  sometimes  wish  that  they  did.  By  our  own  fault  our  lives 
but  imperfectly  show  their  real  inmost  principle.  Friction  always  wastes 
power  before  motion  is  produced. 

So  then  we  may  well  gather  together  all  our  duties  in  this  final  form  of 
the  all-comprehensive  law,  and  say  to  ourselves,  "  Walk  worthily  of  saints." 
Be  true  to  your  name,  to  your  best  selves,  to  your  deepest  selves.  Be  true 
to  your  separation  for  God's  service,  and  to  the  purity  which  comes  from  it. 
Be  true  to  the  life  which  God  has  implanted  in  you.  That  life  may  be 
very  feeble,  and  covered  by  a  great  deal  of  rubbish,  but  it  is  Divine.  Let 
it  work,  let  it  out  !     Do  not  disgrace  your  name  ! 

These  are  the  phrases  of  the  law  of  Christian  conduct.  They  reach  far, 
they  fit  close,  they  penetrate  deeper  than  the  needle-points  of  minute 
regulations.  If  you  will  live  in  a  manner  corresponding  10  the  character, 
and  worthy  of  the  love  of  God  as  revealed  in  Christ,  and  in  conformity 
with  the  principles  that  are  enthroned  upon  His  Cross,  and  in  obedience  to 
the  destiny  held  forth  in  your  high  calling,  and  in  faithfulness  to  the  name 
that  He  Himself  has  impressed  upon  you  ;  then  your  righteousness  shall 
exceed  the  righteousness  of  the  painful  and  punctilious  pharisaical  obedience 
to  outward  commands,  and  all  things  lovely  and  of  good  report  will  spring 
to  life  in  your  hearts  and  bear  fruit  in  your  lives. 

All  these  exhortations  go  on  the  understanding  that  you  are  a  Christian  ; 
that  you  have  taken  Christ  for  your  Saviour,  and  are  resting  upon  Him,  and 
recognising  in  Him  the  revelation  of  God,  and  in  His  Cross  the  foundation 
of  your  hope  ;  that  you  have  listened  to,  and  yielded  to,  the  Divine 
summons,  and  that  you  have  a  right  to  be  called  a  saint.  Is  that  pre- 
sumption true  about  you,  my  friend  ?  If  it  is  not,  Christianity  thinks  that 
it  is  of  no  use  wasting  time  talking  to  you  about  conduct. 

The  first  message  which  Christ  sends  to  you  is.  Trust  your  sinful  selves  to 
Him  as  your  only,  all-sufficient  Saviour.  When  you  have  accepted  Him, 
and  are  leaning  on  Him  with  all  your  weight  of  sin  and  suffering,  and  loving 
Him  with  your  ransomed  heart,  then,  and  not  till  then,  will  you  be  in  a 
position  to  hear  His  law  for  your  life,  and  to  obey  it ;  then,  and  not  till 
then,  will  you  appreciate  the  Divine  simplicity  and  breadth  of  the  great 
command  to  walk  worthy  of  God.  and  the  Divine  tenderness  and  power  of 
the  motive  which  enforces  it,  and  prints  it  on  yielding  and  obedient  hearts, 
even  the  dying  love  and  Cross  of  His  Son.  Till  then,  listen  to  and  accept 
that  great  answer  of  our  Lord's  to  those  who  came  to  Him  for  a  rule  of 
conduct,  instead  of  for  the  gift  of  Life  :  "  Tiiis  is  the  work  of  God,  that  ye 
should  believe  on  Him  whom  He  hath  sent." 

T42 


BLIND   TO   OUR  OWN  FAULTS. 

And  David  said  to  Nathan,  As  the  Lord  Uveth,  the  man  that  hath  done 
this  is  worthy  of  death,  .  .  .  becatise  he  did  this  thing,  and  because  he  had  ito 
pity.     And  ISathan  said  to  David,  Ihou  art  the  man  ! — 2  Sam.  xii.  5-7. 

M  V  22  ^^  ^  man's  own  sin  is  held  up  before  him  a  little  disguised,  he 
'  says,  "  How  ugly  it  is  !  "  And  if  only  for  a  moment  he  can  be 
persuaded  that  it  is  not  his  own  conduct,  but  somebody  else's,  that  he  is 
judging,  the  instinctive  condemnation  comes.  We  have  got  two  sets  of 
names  lor  vices  :  one  set  which  rather  mitigates  and  excuses  them,  and 
another  set  which  puts  them  in  their  real  hideousness.  We  keep  the 
palliative  set  for  home  consumption,  and  liberally  distribute  the  plain- 
spoken,  ugly  set  amongst  the  vices  and  faults  of  our  friends. 

The  same  thing  which  I  call  in  myself  prudence,  I  call  in  you  meanness. 
The  same  thing  which  you  call  in  yourself  generous  living,  you  call  in 
your  friend  filthy  sensualism.  That  which,  to  the  doer  of  it,  is  only 
righteous  indignation,  to  the  onlooker  is  passionate  anger.  That  which,  in 
the  practiser  of  it,  is  no  more  than  a  due  regard  for  the  interests  of  his  own 
family  and  himself  in  the  future,  is,  to  the  envious  lookers-on,  shabbiness 
and  meanness  in  money  matters.  That  which,  to  the  liar,  is  only  prudent 
diplomatic  reticence,  to  the  listener  is  falsehood.  That  which,  in  the  man 
that  judges  his  own  conduct,  is  but  "a  choleric  word,"  is,  in  his  friend, 
when  he  judges  him,  "  flat  blasphemy." 

And  so  we  go  all  round  the  circle,  and  condemn  our  own  vices,  when 
we  see  them  in  other  people.  So  the  King  who  had  never  thought,  when 
he  stole  away  Uriah's  one  ewe  lamb,  and  did  him  to  death  by  traitorous 
commands,  setting  him  in  the  front  of  the  battle,  that  he  was  wanting  in 
compassion,  blazes  up  at  once,  and  righteously  sentences  the  othei  "  man" 
to  death,  "because  he  had  no  pity."  He  had  never  thought  of  blmsolf  or 
of  his  crime  as  cruel,  as  mean,  as  selfish,  as  heartless.  But  when  he  sees 
a  partially  disguised  picture  of  it,  he  knows  it  for  the  devil's  child  that  it  is. 

"Oh!  wad  some  power  the  gifiie  gie  us 
lo  see  oursels  as  ithers  see  us  ; 
It  wad  frae  many  an  error  free  us  "  : 

and  so  it  would,  to  see  ourselves  as  we  see  others.     We  judge  our  brother 
and  ourselves  by  two  different  standards. 

For  godliness,  we  need  to  cultivate  the  habit  of  discrimination  between 
good  and  evil,  right  and  wrong,  because  the  world  is  full  of  illusions,  and 
we  are  very  blind.  And  v/e  need  to  cultivate  the  habit  of  self-control,  and 
rigid  repression  of  passions,  and  lusts,  and  desires,  and  tastes,  and  inclina- 
tions before  His  calm  and  sovereign  will,  because  the  world  is  lull  of  fire, 
and  our  hearts  and  natures  are  tinder.  And  we  need  to  cultivate  the  habit 
of  patience  in  all  its  three  senses  of  endurance  in  sorrow,  of  persistence  in 
service,  and  of  hope  of  the  future,  because  the  more  a  man  cultivates  that 
habit,  the  larger  will  be  his  stock  of  proofs  of  the  loving-kindness  and  good- 
ness of  his  God,  and  the  easier  and  more  blessed  it  will  be  for  him  to  live  in 
continual  communion  with  Him.  There  is  no  way  by  which  your  religion 
can  become  deep,  all-pervasive,  practical,  sovereign  in  your  lives,  but  the 
old  road  of  efitbrt  and  of  prayer.  "  Exercise  thyself,"  as  a  gymnast  does  in 
the  arena  ; — exercise  thyself  unto  godliness, — and  do  not  fancy  that  the 
Chrisiian  life  comes  as  a  matter  of  course  on  the  back  of  some  one  initial 
act  of  a  long-forgotten  faith  in  Jesus  Christ. 

143 


FAMILIARISATION   OF   HABIT. 

Who  js  he  that  saith,  and  it  cometh  to  pass,  when  the  Lord  commandeth 
it  not? — Lam.  lii.  37. 

„  g-  Let  me  remind  you  how  a  strong  wish  for  a  thing  that  seems 
^  cies'rable  always  lends  to  confuse  to  a  man  the  plain  distinction 

between  right  and  wrong  ;  and  how  pass  ons  once  excited,  or  the  animal 
hists  and  desires  once  kindled  in  a  man,  go  straight  to  their  object  with- 
out the  smallest  regard  to  whether  that  object  is  to  be  reached  by  the 
breach  of  all  laws,  human  and  Divine,  or  not.  If  a  man  Is  hungry,  and 
bread  is  before  him,  his  mouth  waters,  whether  it  is  his  own  or  other 
l)eople's.  Excite  any  passion,  and  the  passion  is  but  a  blind  propensity 
towards  certain  good,  and  has  no  question  or  consideration  of  whether  right 
or  wrong  is  involved  at  all.  Habit  familiarises  with  evil,  and  diminishes 
our  sense  of  it  as  evil.  A  man  that  has  been  for  a  half-a  day  in  some  ill- 
ventilated  room  does  not  notice  the  poisonous  atmosphere  ;  if  you  go  into 
it,  you  are  half-suffocated  at  first,  and  breathe  more  easily  as  you  get  used  to 
it.  A  man  can  live  amidst  the  foulest  poison  of  evil ;  and,  as  the  Styrian 
peasants  get  fat  upon  arsenic,  his  whole  nature  may  seem  to  thrive  by  the 
poison  that  it  absorbs.  They  tell  us  that  the  breed  of  fi.sh  that  live  in  the 
lightless  caverns  in  the  bowels  of  some  mountains,  by  long  disuse  have 
had  their  eyes  atrophied  out  of  them,  and  are  blind  because  they  have 
lived  out  of  the  light.  And  so  men  that  live  in  the  love  of  evil  lo.se  the 
capacity  of  discerning  the  evil.  And  he  that  walketh  in  darkness  becomes 
blind,  blind  to  his  sin,  and  blind  to  all  the  realities  of  life. 

Then  is  it  not  true,  too,  that  many  of  us  systematically  and  of  set 
purpose  continually  avoid  all  questions  as  to  the  moral  nature  of  our  con- 
duct ?  How  many  a  man  and  woman  never  sits  down  to  think  whether 
what  they  have  been  doing  is  right  or  wrong,  because  they  have  got,  deep 
down,  an  uneasy  suspicion  as  to  what  the  answer  would  be.  So.  by  reason 
of  fostering  passion,  by  reason  of  listening  to  wishes,  by  reason  of  the  habit 
of  wrong  doing,  by  reason  of  the  systematic  avoidance  of  all  careful  in- 
vestigation of  our  character  and  of  our  conduct,  we  lose  the  power  of  fairly 
deciding  upon  the  nature  of  our  own  acts. 

In  order  to  secure  habitual  godliness,  you  will  want  manly  strength  and 
vigour,  because  you  can  get  no  hold  of  an  unseen  God  except  by  a  definite 
effort  of  thought,  which  will  require  resolute  will.  There  we  touch  on 
one  of  the  reasons  why  much  modern  Christianity  is  so  feeble.  We  do  not 
screw  ourselves  up  to  think  about  God  and  Christ  in  our  daily  life.  So  the 
truths  which  we  believe  slip  from  our  slack  grasp  before  we  know  that  they 
are  gone.  A  conjuror  will  put  a  coin  in  a  man's  palm,  and  shut  his  hand 
upon  it,  and  say,  "Are  \ou  sure  you  have  got  it?"  "Open  your  hands." 
It  is  not  there.  That  is  how  a  good  many  of  you  lose  your  religion  ;  you 
think  you  have  it  ;  you  once  had  it.  The  last  time  you  looked  at  it,  it  was 
there.  It  is  not  there  now.  Why?  Because  )ou  have  not  added  to  your 
faith  strength,  and  made  the  efforts  of  mind  and  will  which  are  needed  in 
order  to  keep  hold  of  the  things  which  have  been  freely  given  to  you  of 
God.  Do  not  sjiend  your  time  ujjon  merely  trying  to  cultivate  special 
graces  of  the  Christian  character,  however  needful  they  may  l;e  for  you, 
and  however  beautiful  they  maybe  in  themselves.  Seek  to  have  that  which 
sanctifies  and  strengthens  them  all.  Faith  is  the  foundation,  godliness  the 
apex  and  crown. 

144 


GOD'S   GREAT  DESIRE. 

God  our  Saviour,  who  willeth  that  all  men  should  be  saved,  and  come  to 
he  knowledge  of  i he  truth. —  I  Tim.  ii.  3,  4. 

God  wants  to  save  the  world,  but  God  can  only  save  men  one  at  a 
*^  ■  time.  There  must  be  an  individual  access  to  llim,  as  I  have  said 
about  the  conviction  of  sin,  just  as  if  He  and  I  were  the  only  two  beings  in 
the  whole  universe.  There  is  no  wholesale  reception  into  God  s  Church  or 
into  God's  kingdom  ;  God's  mercy  is  not  given  to  crowds,  except  as  composed 
of  individuals  who  have  individually  received  it.  There  must  be  the 
personal  act  of  faith  ;  there  must  be  my  solitary  coming  to  Him.  As  the 
old  mystics  used  to  define  prayer,  so  I  might  define  the  whole  process  by 
which  men  are  saved  from  their  sins,  '*  the  flight  of  the  lonely  soul  to  the 
lonely  God."  My  brother,  it  is  not  enough  for  you  to  say,  "We  have 
sinned";  say,  "I  have  sinned."  It  is  not  enough  that  from  a  gathered 
congregation  there  should  go  up  the  united  litany,  *'Lord,  have  mercy 
upon  us!"  "Christ,  have  mercy  upon  us!"  "Lord,  have  mercy  upon 
us  ! "  You  must  make  the  prayer  your  own  :  "  Lord,  have  mercy  upon 
me  !  "  It  is  not  enough  that  you  should  believe,  as  I  suppose  most  of  you 
fancy  that  you  believe,  that  Christ  has  died  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world. 
That  belief  will  give  you  no  share  in  His  blessedness.  You  must  come  to 
closer  grips  with  Him  than  that  ;  and  you  must  be  able  to  say,  *'  Who 
loved  me^  and  gave  Himself  for  ;;/^."  Let  us  have  no  running  away  into 
the  crowd.  Come  out,  and  stand  by  yourself,  and  for  yourself  stretch 
out  your  own  hand,  and  take  Christ  for  yourself. 

A  man  may  die  of  starvation  in  a  granary.  You  may  be  lost  in  the 
midst  of  this  abundance  that  Christ  has  supplied  for  you.  And  the 
difference  between  really  possessing  salvation  and  losing  it  Hes  very  largely 
in  the  difference  between  saying  "us"  and  "me."  "  Thou  art  the  man  " 
in  regard  of  the  general  accusation  of  sin  ;  "Thou  art  the  man"  in  regard 
of  the  solemn  law  which  proclaims  "  the  soul  that  sinneth  it  shall  die  " 
And— blessed  be  God! — "Thou  art  the  man"  in  regard  of  the  great 
promise  that  says,  "  If  any  man  thirst,  let  him  come  unto  Me  and  drink." 
Christ  gives  you  a  blank  cheque  in  this  world  :  "  Whoso  cometh  unto 
Me,  I  will  in  no  wise  cast  out,"  Write  thine  own  name  in,  and  by  thy 
personal  faith  in  the  Lamb  of  God  that  died  for  thee,  thy  sins  shall  pass 
away  ;  and  all  the  fulness  of  God  shall  be  thy  very  own  for  ever.  "  If 
thou  be  wise,  thou  shalt  be  wise  for  thyself ;  and  if  thou  scornest,  thou  alone 
Shalt  bear  it" 

145  L 


A  MESSAGE  OF  MERCY. 

The  sacrifices  of  God  are  a  broken  spirit :  a  broken  and  a  contrite 
hearty  O  God,  Thou  wilt  not  despise. — Fsalm  li.  17. 

May  25  ^^^  indispensable  characteristic  and  certain  criterion  of  a 
tme  message  and  Gospel  from  God  is  that  it  pierces  the 
conscience  a'.id  kindles  the  sense  of  sin.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  so- 
called  Christian  teaching,  both  from  pulpits  and  books,  in  this  day,  which, 
to  my  mind,  is  altogether  defective  by  reason  of  its  under-estimate  of  the 
cardinal  fact  of  sin,  and  its  consequent  failure  to  represent  the  fundamental 
characteristic  of  the  Gospel  as  being  deliverance  and  redemption.  I  am 
quite  sure  that  the  root  of  nine-tenths  of  all  the  heresies  that  have  ever 
atflicted  the  Christian  Church,  and  of  the  weakness  of  so  much  popular 
Christianity,  is  none  other  than  this  failure  adequately  to  recognise  the 
universality  and  the  gravity  of  the  fact  of  transgression.  If  a  thing  comes 
to  you,  calls  itself  God's  message,  and  does  not  start  with  man's  sin,  nor 
put  in  the  forefront  of  its  utterances  the  way  by  which  the  dominion  of 
that  sin  in  your  own  heart  can  be  broken,  and  the  penalties  of  that  sin 
in  your  present  and  future  life  can  be  swept  away,  ipso  facto,  it  is  con- 
demned, as  not  a  Gospel  from  God,  or  fit  for  man.  Oh,  my  brother  !  it 
sounds  harsh  ;  but  it  is  the  truest  kindness,  when  Nathan  stands  before 
the  King,  and  with  his  flashing  eye,  and  stern,  calm  voice  says,  "Thou 
art  the  man."  Was  not  that  nobler,  truer,  tenderer,  worthier  of  God, 
than  if  he  had  smoothed  him  down  with  soft  speeches  that  would  not 
have  roused  his  conscience  ?  Is  it  not  the  truest  benevolence  that  keeps 
the  surgeon's  hand  steady  whilst  his  heart  is  touched  by  the  pain  he 
inflicts,  as  he  thrusts  his  gleaming  instrument  of  tender  cruelty  into 
the  poisonous  sore  ?  And  is  not  God's  mercy  and  love  manifest  for  us 
in  this,  that  He  begins  all  His  work  with  us  with  the  grave,  solemn 
indictment  of  each  soul  by  itself,  "Thou  art  the  man."  "He  showed 
me  all  the  mercy,  for  He  taught  me  all  the  sin." 

Sin  is  a  universal  disease.  Humanity  is  bound  in  one  because  all  of  us 
are  among  the  multitude  of  impotent  folk.  Like  the  boils  and  blains  that 
broke  out  in  Egypt  when  Moses  tossed  the  dust  in  the  air,  whether  it  is 
Pharaoh  or  the  slave  grinding  at  the  millstone,  or  the  outcast  on  the  dung- 
hill, the  blain  is  there  on  every  skin.  Does  not  the  assurance  that  (iod's 
great  love  is  not  turned  away  from  men  by  their  transgressions  feed  the 
hope — nay,  rather,  inspire  the  certainty — that  for  all  the  sick  there  is 
healing?  It  seems  to  me  that  any  man  that  believes  in  a  God  who  is  not  a 
devil  ought  to  believe  in  a  God  who  reveals  Himself.  Here  is  the  very 
weakness  of  what  nowadays  is  called  Theism,  that,  asserting  the  existence 
of  a  Supreme  Being  who  is  love  and  righteousness,  it  maintains  that  that 
Being  has  never  said  a  single  word  to  men,  and  never  done  a  single  thing, 
to  lift  them  out  of  the  mire.  Whosoever  may  believe  that,  I  cannot ;  and 
it  seems  to  me  that  the  doctrine  of  Christianity  is  far  more  in  consonance 
with  the  assurance  that  He  is  love  than  that  dreary  creed  that  the  infinite 
and  loving  God  has  not  spoken,  and  never  will  nor  can  speak,  to  His  world. 
Carlyle,  in  one  of  his  bursts  of  melancholy,  said,  speaking  about  the  Deity 
as  he  conceived  Him,  "And  He  has  done  nothing  ! "  He  has  done  some- 
thing.    He  has  opened  "a  fountain  for  sin  and  for  uncleanness." 

146 


THE  NEED   OF  A  DIVINE   REVELATION. 

Ye  search  the  Scriptures^  because  ye  think  that  in  them  ye  have  eternal 
life  ;   and  these  are  they  which  bear  witness  of  Me. — John  v.  39. 

We  want  another  than  our  own  voice  to  lay  down  the  law 
^^  *  of  conduct,  and  to  accuse  and  condemn  the  breaches  of  it. 
Conscience  is  not  a  wholly  reliable  guide,  nor  either  an  impartial  nor 
an  all-knowing  judge.  Unconsciousness  of  evil  is  not  innocence.  It  is 
not  the  purest  of  women  that  **  wipes  her  mouth  and  says,  I  have 
done  no  harm."  My  conscience  says  to  me,  "It  is  wrong  to  do 
wrong";  but  when  I  say  to  my  conscience,  "Yes,  and  pray  what  is 
wrong?"  there  is  a  large  variety  of  answers  possible.  A  man  may 
sophisticate  his  conscience,  and  bribe  his  conscience,  and  throttle  his 
conscience,  and  sear  his  conscience.  And  so  the  man  that  is  worst, 
who,  therefore,  ought  to  be  most  chastised  by  his  conscience,  has 
most  immunity  from  it ;  and  where,  if  it  is  to  be  of  use,  it  ought  to 
be  most  powerful,  there  it  is  weakest. 

What  then  ?  Why  this,  then —  a  standard  that  varies  is  not  a 
standard  ;  men  are  left  with  a  leaden  rule.  My  conscience,  your 
conscience,  is  like  the  standard  measures  which  we  at  present  possess, 
which  by  their  very  names — foot,  handbreath,  nail,  and  the  like — tell  us 
that  they  were  originally  but  the  length  of  one  man's  limb.  And  so 
your  measure  of  right  and  wrong,  and  another  man's  measure,  though 
they  may  substantially  correspond,  yet  have  differences  due  to  your 
differences  of  education,  character,  and  a  thousand  other  things.  So 
that  the  individual  man's  standard  needs  to  be  rectified.  You  have  to 
send  all  the  weights  and  measures  up  to  the  Tower  now  and  then,  to 
get  them  stamped  and  certified.  And,  as  I  believe,  this  fluctuation  of 
our  moral  judgments  shows  the  need  for  a  fixed  pattern  and  firm,  un- 
changeable standard,  external  to  our  mutable  selves.  A  light  on  deck 
which  pitches  with  the  pitching  ship  is  no  guide.  It  must  flash  from  a 
white  pillar  founded  on  a  rock  and  immovable  amid  the  restless  waves. 
Our  need  of  such  a  standard  raises  a  strong  presumption  that  a  good 
God  will  give  us  what  we  need,  it  He  can.  Such  a  standard  He  has 
given,  as  I  believe,  in  the  revelation  of  Himself  which  lies  in  this  book 
of  God,  and  culminates  in  the  life  and  character  of  Jesus  Christ  our 
Lord.  There,  and  by  that,  we  can  set  our  watches.  There  we  can 
read  the  law  of  morality,  and  by  our  deflections  from  it  we  can  measure 
the  amount  of  our  guilt. 

147 


THE   EMPIRE  OF  FEAR. 

TV/io  is  among  you  that  feareth  the  Lord,  that  obeyeth  the  voice  of  His 
servant  ?  he  that  walketh  in  darkness^  and  hath  no  light,  let  him  trust  in  the 
uatne  of  the  Lord. — IsA.  1.  10. 

Fear  is  a  shrinking  apprehension  of  evil  as  befalling  us,  from  the 
*  person  or  thing  which  we  dread.  We  are  sometimes  brought  face 
to  face  with  that  solemn  thought  that  there  are  conditions  of  human  nature  in 
which  the  God  who  ought  to  be  our  dearest  joy  and  most  ardent  desire 
becomes  our  ghastliest  dread.  The  root  of  such  an  unnatural  perversion  of 
all  that  a  creature  ought  to  feel  towards  its  loving  Creator  Hes  in  the  simple 
consciousness  of  discordance  between  God  and  man,  which  is  the  shadow 
cast  over  the  heart  by  the  face  of  sin.  God  is  righteous  ;  God  righteously 
administers  His  universe.  God  enters  into  relations  of  approval  or  dis- 
approval with  His  responsible  creature.  Therefore  there  lies,  dormant  for 
the  most  part,  but  present  in  every  heart,  and  active  in  the  measure  in 
which  that  heart  is  informed  as  to  itself,  the  slumbering  cold  dread  that 
between  it  and  God  things  are  tiot  as  they  ought  to  be. 

I  believe,  for  my  part,  that  such  a  dumb,  dim  consciousness  of  discord 
attaches  to  all  men,  though  it  is  often  smothered,  often  ignored,  and  often 
denied.  But  there  it  is  ;  the  snake  hibernates,  but  it  is  coiled  in  the 
heart  all  the  same ;  and  warmth  will  awake  it.  Then  it  lifts  its  crested 
head,  and  shoots  out  its  forked  tongue,  and  venom  passes  into  the  veins. 
A  dread  of  God  I — the  ghastliest  thing  in  the  world,  the  most  unnatural 
but  universal,  unless  expelled  by  perfect  love  ! 

Arising  from  that  discomforting  consciousness  of  discord  there  come, 
likewise,  other  forms  and  objects  of  dread.  For  if  I  am  out  of  harmony 
with  Him,  what  will  be  my  fate  in  the  midst  of  a  universe  administered  by 
Him,  and  in  which  all  are  His  servants?  Oh  !  I  sometimes  wonder  how  it 
is  that  godless  men  front  the  facts  of  human  life,  and  do  not  go  mad  !  For 
here  are  we,  naked,  feeble,  alone,  plunged  into  a  whirlpool,  from  the 
awful  vortices  of  which  we  cannot  extricate  ourselves.  There  foam  and 
swirl  all  manner  of  evils,  some  of  them  certain,  some  of  them  probable, 
any  of  them  possible,  since  we  are  at  discord  with  Him  who  wields  all  the 
forces  of  the  universe,  and  wields  them  all  with  a  righteous  hand.  "The 
stars  in  their  courses  fight  against  "  the  man  that  does  not  fight  for  God. 
Whilst  all  things  serve  the  soul  that  serves  Him,  all  are  embattled  against 
the  man  that  is  against,  or  not  for,  God  and  His  will. 

Then  there  arises  up  another  object  of  dread,  which,  in  like  manner, 
derives  all  its  power  to  terrify  and  to  hurt  from  the  fact  of  our  discordance 
with  God  ;  and  that  is  *'  the  shadow  feared  of  man,"  that  stands  shrouded 
by  the  path,  and  waits  for  each  of  us. 

14S 


FEAR   GOD. 

Fear  God,  and  keep  His  commattdments  :  for  this  is  the  whole  duty  of 
man. — EcCLES.  xii.  13. 

Blay  28     ^°^ '   God's   universe  ;   God's  messenger,    Death,— these   are 
facts  with  which  we  stand  in  relation,  and  if  our  relations  with 
Him  are  out  of  gear,  then  He,  and  all  of  these,  are  legitimate  objects  of  dread 
to  us. 

But  there  is  something  else  that  casts  out  fear  than  perfect  love,  and 
that  is — perfect  levity.  For  it  is  the  explanation  of  the  fact  that  so  many  of 
us  know  nothing  about  v/hat  I  am  saying,  and  fancy  that  I  am  exaggerating 
or  putting  forward  false  views.  There  is  a  type  of  men  who  are  below 
both  Fear  and  Love,  directed  towards  God ;  for  they  never  think  about 
Him,  or  trouble  their  heads  concerning  either  Him  or  their  relations  to 
Him,  or  anything  that  flows  therefrom.  It  is  a  strange  faculty  that 
we  all  have,  of  forgetting  unwelcome  thoughts  and  shutting  our  eyes  to 
the  things  that  we  do  not  want  to  see,  like  Nelson  when  he  put  the 
telescope  to  his  blind  eye  at  Copenhagen,  because  he  would  not  obey  the 
signal  of  recall.  But  surely  it  is  an  ignoble  thing  that  men  should  ignore 
or  shuffle  out  of  sight  with  inconsiderateness  the  real  facts  of  their  condition, 
like  boys  whistling  in  a  churchyard,  to  keep  their  spirits  up,  and  saying, 
**  Who's  afraid?"  just  because  they  are  so  very  much  afraid.  Ah!  dear 
friend,  do  not  rest  until  3^ou  face  the  facts,  and,  having  faced  them,  have 
found  the  way  to  reverse  them  1  Surely,  surely,  it  is  not  worthy  of  men  to 
turn  away  from  anything  so  certain  as  that  between  a  sin-loving  man  and 
God  there  must  exist  such  a  relation  as  will  bring  evil  and  sorrow  to  that 
man,  as  surely  as  God  is  !  And  He  is.  I  beseech  you,  take  to  heart  these 
things,  and  do  not  turn  away  from  them  with  a  shake  of  your  shoulders, 
and  say,  *'  He  is  preaching  the  narrow,  old-fashioned  doctrine  of  a  religion 
of  fear."  No  !  I  am  not.  But  I  am  preaching  this  plain  fact,  that  a  man 
who  is  in  discord  with  God  has  reason  to  be  afraid,  and  I  come  to  you 
with  the  old  exhortation  of  the  prophet,  "Be  troubled,  ye  careless  ones." 
For  there  is  nothing  more  ignoble  or  irrational  than  security  which  is 
only  possible  by  covering  over  unwelcome  facts.  **  Be  troubled  ! "  and  let 
the  trouble  lead  you  to  the  Refuge. 

149 


THE  MISSION  OF  FEAR. 

Every  man  hath  his  sword  upon  his  thigh,  because  of  fear  in  the  night. — 
Song  of  S.  iii.  8. 

jj  pg  John  uses  a  rare  word  when  he  says,  "Fear  hath  torment.'''* 
"  Turment "  does  not  convey  the  whole  idea  of  the  word.  It 
means  sufferinijj,  but  suiTeririg  for  a  purpose  ;  suOering  which  is  correction  ; 
suffering  which  is  disciplinary  ;  suffering  which  is  intended  to  lead  to 
something  beyond  itself.  Fear,  the  apprehension  of  personal  evil,  has  the 
same  function  in  the  moral  world  as  pain  has  in  the  ph)sical.  It  is  a 
symptom  of  disease,  and  is  intended  to  bid  us  look  for  the  remedy  and  the 
Ph3sician  What  is  an  alarm-bell  for  but  to  rouse  the  sleepers,  and  to 
hurry  them  to  the  refuge  ?  And  so  this  wholesome,  manly  dread  of  the 
certain  issue  of  discord  with  God  is  meant  to  do  for  us  what  the  angels  did 
for  Lot  ;  lay  a  mercifully  violent  hand  on  the  shoulder  of  the  sleeper,  and 
shake  him  into  aroused  wakefulness,  and  hasten  him  out  of  Sodom  before 
the  fire  bursts  through  the  ground,  and  was  met  by  the  fire  from  above. 
The  intention  of  fear  is  to  lead  to  that  which  shall  annihilate  it  and  take 
away  its  cause. 

There  is  nothing  more  ridiculous,  nothing  more  likely  to  betray  a  man, 
than  the  indulgence  in  an  idle  fear  which  does  nothing  to  prevent  its  own 
fulfilment.  Horses  in  a  burning  stable  are  so  paral;,sed  by  dread  that  they 
cannot  stir,  and  get  burnt  to  death.  And  for  a  man  to  be  afraid — as  every 
man  ought  to  be  who  is  conscious  of  unforgiven  sin — for  a  man  to  be  afraid, 
and  there  an  end,  is  absolute  insanity.  I  fear ;  then  what  do  I  do  ? 
Nothing  !     And  that  is  true  about  hosts  of  us. 

What  ought  I  to  do?  Let  the  dread  direct  me  to  its  source,  my  own 
sinfulness.  Let  the  discovery  of  my  own  sinfulness  direct  me  to  its  remedy, 
the  rigiitcousness  and  the  Cross  of  Jesus  Christ.  He,  and  He  alone,  can 
deal  with  the  disturbing  element  in  my  relation  to  God.  Pie  can  "  dehver 
me  from  my  enemies,  for  they  are  too  strong  for  nie."  It  is  Christ  and  His 
work,  Christ  and  His  sacrifice,  Christ  and  His  indwelling  Spirit,  that  will 
comfort  and  overconie  sin  and  all  its  cons;equences  in  any  man  and  every 
man  ;  taking  away  its  ixnialty,  lightening  the  heart  of  the  burden  of  its 
guilt,  delivering  from  its  love  and  dominion — oil  three  of  which  things  are 
the  barbs  of  the  arrows  with  wliich  fear  riddles  heart  and  conscience.  So 
my  fear  should  proclaim  to  me  the  merciful  "  Name  that  is  above  every 
name,"  and  drive  me  as  well  as  draw  me  to  Christ,  the  Conqueror  of  sin 
and  the  Antagonist  of  all  dread.  I  am  not  preaching  the  religion  of  Fear; 
but  I  think  we  shall  scarcely  understand  the  religion  of  Love  unless  we 
recognise  that  dread  is  a  legitimate  part  of  an  unforgiven  man's  attitude 
towards  God.  lily  fear  should  be  to  me  like  the  misshapen  guide  that  may 
lead  me  to  the  fortress  where  I  shall  be  safe,  Oh  !  do  not  tamper  with  the 
wholesome  sense  of  dread  Do  not  let  it  lie,  generally  sleeping,  and  now 
and  then  awaking  in  your  hearts,  and  bringing  about  nothing.  Sailors 
that  crash  on  with  all  s:dls  set — slunsails  and  all— whilst  the  barometer  is 
rapidly  falling,  and  the  bo  iing  clouds  are  on  the  horizon,  and  the  line  of 
the  approaching  gale  is  ruilling  the  sea  )onder,  have  themselves  to  blame  if 
they  founder,  L(;ok  to  the  falling  barometer,  and  make  ready  for  the 
coming  storm,  and  remember  that  tlie  mission  of  Fear  is  to  lead  you  to  the 
Christ  who  will  take  it  away. 

150 


THE   EXPULSION  OF  FEAR. 

There  is  no  fear  in  love,  but  perfect  love  casteth  out  fear :  because  fear 
hath  punishment ;  and  he  that  feareth  is  not  made  perfect  in  love. — 
I  John  iv,  i8. 

„  g-  You  cannot  love  and  fear  the  same  person,  unless  the  love  is  of 
^  *  a  very  rudimentary  and  imperfect  cliaracter.  But  just  as  when 
you  pour  pure  water  into  a  bladder,  the  poisonous  gases  that  it  may  have 
contained  will  be  driven  out  before  it,  so  when  love  comes  in  dread  goes 
out.  The  river,  turned  into  the  foul  Augean  stables  of  the  heart,  will 
sweep  out  all  the  filth  before  it,  and  leave  everything  clear.  The  black, 
greasy  smoke-wreath,  touched  by  the  fire  of  Christ's  love,  will  flash  out  into 
ruddy  flame  like  that  which  has  kindled  them.  And  Christ's  love  will 
kindle  in  your  hearts,  if  you  accept  it,  and  apprehend  it  aright,  a  love 
which  will  burn  up  and  turn  into  fuel  for  itself  the  now  useless  dread. 

Inconsistent  as  the  two  emotions  are  in  themselves,  in  practice,  they 
may  be  united  by  reason  of  the  imperfection  of  the  nobler.  And  in  the 
Christian  life  they  are  united  with  terrible  frequency.  There  are  many 
professing  Christian  people  who  Uve  all  their  days  with  a  burden  of  shiver- 
ing dread  upon  their  shoulders,  and  an  icy-cold  fear  in  their  hearts,  just 
because  they  have  not  got  close  enough  to  Jesus  Christ,  and  kept  their 
hearts  with  sufficient  steadfastness  under  the  quickening  influences  of  His 
love,  to  have  shaken  off  their  dread  as  a  sick  man's  distempered  fancies. 
A  little  love  has  not  mass  enough  in  it  to  drive  out  thick,  clustering  fears. 
There  are  hundreds  of  professing  Christians  who  know  very  little  indeed  of 
that  joyous  love  of  God  which  swallows  up  and  makes  impossible  all  dread, 
who,  because  they  have  not  a  loving  present  consciousness  of  a  loving 
Father's  loving  will,  tremble  when  they  front  in  imagination,  and  still  more 
when  they  meet  in  reahty,  the  evils  that  must  come,  and  who  cannot  face 
the  thought  of  death  with  anything  but  shrinking  apprehension.  There  is 
far  too  much  of  the  old  leaven  of  selfish  dread  left  in  the  experiences  of 
many  Christians.  "  I  feared  thee  because  thou  wert  an  austere  man — and 
so,  because  I  was  afraid,  I  went  and  hid  my  talent,  and  did  nothing  for 
thee  " — is  a  transcript  of  the  experience  of  far  too  may  of  us.  The  one  way 
to  get  deliverance  is  to  go  to  Jesus  Christ  and  keep  close  by  Him. 

There  is  only  one  wise  thing  to  do,  and  that  is  to  make  clean  work  of 
getting  rid  of  the  occasion  of  dread,  which  is  the  fact  of  sin.  Take  all 
your  sin  to  Jesus  Christ ;  He  will — and  He  only  can — deal  with  it.  He 
will  lay  His  hand  on  you,  as  He  did  of  old,  with  the  characteristic  word 
that  was  so  often  upon  His  lips,  and  which  He  alone  is  competent  to  speak 
in  its  deepest  meaning.  *'  Fear  not,  it  is  I,"  and  He  will  give  you  the 
courage  that  He  commands. 

God  hath  not  given  us  the  spirit  of  fear,  but  of  "power,  and  of  love, 
and  of  a  sound  mind."  "  Ye  have  not  received  the  spirit  of  bondage  again 
to  fear,  but  ye  have  received  the  spirit  of  adoption  whereby  we  cry  Abba  ! 
Father,"  and  cling  to  Him  as  a  child  who  knows  his  father's  heart  too  well 
to  be  afraid  of  anything  in  his  father,  or  of  anything  that  his  father's  hand 
can  send. 


THE  PROMISE   OF  THE   PENTECOST. 

Is  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  sfrailencd  ? — MiCAll  ii.  7. 

A7id  they  were  all  filled  with  the  Holy  Spirit. — ACTS  ii.  4. 

„  „  W  HAT  did  the  Pentecost  declare  and  hold  forth  for  the  faith 
*^  '  of  the  Church  ?  I  need  not  dwell  at  any  length  upon  this 
thought.  The  facts  are  familiar  to  you,  and  the  inferences  drawn  from 
them  are  commonplace  and  known  to  us  all.  But  let  me  just  enumerate 
them  as  briefly  as  may  be.  "  Suddenly  there  came  a  sound,  as  of  the 
rushing  of  a  mighty  wind,  and  it  filled  all  the  house  wliere  they  were 
sitting."  And  there  came  "  cloven  tongues  as  of  fire,  and  it  sat  upon  each 
of  them  ;  and  they  were  all  filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost."  What  lay  in 
that  ?  First,  the  promise  of  a  Divine  Spirit  whose  symbols  express  some, 
at  all  events,  of  the  characteristics  and  vvonderfulness  of  His  work.  The 
*'  rushing  of  a  mighty  wind  "  spoke  of  a  power  which  varied  in  its  manifes- 
tations from  the  gentlest  breath  that  scarce  moves  the  leaves  on  the  summer 
trees  to  the  wildest  blast  that  casts  down  all  which  stands  in  its  way.  The 
natural  symbolism  of  the  wind,  the  least  material  to  the  popular  apprehen- 
sion of  all  material  forces,  and  of  which  the  connection  with  the  immaterial 
part  of  a  man's  personality  has  been  expressed  in  all  languages,  point  to 
a  Divine,  to  an  immaterial,  to  a  mighty,  to  a  life-giving  power  which  is 
free  to  blow  whither  it  listeth,  and  of  which  men  can  mark  the  effects, 
though  they  are  all  ignorant  of  the  force  itself.  The  twin  symbol,  the  fiery 
tongues  which  parted  and  sat  upon  each  of  them,  speak  in  like  manner  of 
the  Divine  influences,  not  as  destructive,  but  full  of  quick  rejoicing  energy 
and  life,  the  power  to  transform  and  to  purify.  Whithersoever  the  fire 
comes,  it  changes  all  things  into  its  own  substance.  Whithersoever  the  fire 
comes,  there  the  ruddy  spires  shoot  upwards  towards  the  heavens.  Whither- 
soever the  fire  comes,  there  all  bonds  and  fetters  are  melted  and  consumed. 
And  so  this  fire  transforms,  purifies,  ennol:)les,  quickens,  sets  free  ;  and 
where  the  fiery  spirit  is,  there  is  energy,  swift  life,  rejoicing  activity,  trans- 
forming and  transmuting  power  which  changes  the  recipient  of  the  flame 
into  flame  himself. 

In  the  fact  of  Pentecost  there  is  the  promise  of  a  Divine  Spirit  which 
is  to  influence  all  the  moral  side  of  humanity.  This  is  the  great  and 
glorious  distinction  between  the  Christian  doctrine  of  inspiration  and  all 
others  which  have,  in  heathen  lands,  partially  reached  similar  conceptions, 
that  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  has  laid  emphasis  upon  the  Holy  Spirit,  and 
has  declared  that  holiness  of  heart  is  the  touchstone  and  test  of  all  claims 
of  Divine  inspiration.  Gifts  are  much,  graces  are  more  ;  an  inspiration 
which  makes  wise  is  to  be  coveted,  .in  inspiration  which  makes  good  is 
transcendently  better.  And  there  we  find  the  safeguard  against  all  the 
fanaticisms  which  have  sometimes  invaded  the  Christian  Church,  that  the 
Spirit  which  dwells  in  men,  and  makes  them  free  from  the  obligations  of 
outward  law  and  cold  morality,  is  a  Spirit  that  works  a  deeper  holiness 
than  law  dreamed,  and  a  more  spontaneous  and  glad  conformity  to  all 
things  that  are  fair  and  good  than  any  legislation  and  outward  command- 
ment can  ever  enforce. 

152 


THE  GIFT  OF  THE  SPIRIT. 

And  there  appeared  unto  them  tongues  parting  asunder,  like  as  of  fire  ; 
and  it  sat  upon  each  one  of  them. — Acts  ii.  3. 

The  Spirit  that  came  at  Pentecost  is  not  merely  a  Spitit  of 
June  1.  ^^gj^jng  might  and  of  swift-flaming  energy,  but  it  is  a  Spirit  of 
holiness  whose  most  blessed  and  intimate  work  is  all  the  homely  virtues 
and  sweet,  unpretending  goodnesses  which  can  adorn  and  gladden  humanity. 
And  then  the  early  story  carried  in  it  the  promise  and  prophecy  of  a  Spirit 
granted  to  all  the  Church.  "They  were  ail  filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost." 
There  is  the  true  democracy  of  Christianity,  that  its  very  basis  is  laid 
in  the  thought  that  every  member  of  the  body  is  equally  close  to  the  Head, 
and  equally  recipient  of  the  life.  There  are  none  now  who  have  a  Spirit 
which  others  do  not  possess.  The  ancient  aspiration  of  the  Jewish  Law- 
giver, *'  Would  God  that  all  the  Lord's  people  were  prophets,  and  that  the 
Lord  would  put  His  Spirit  upon  them,"  is  fulfilled  in  the  experience  of 
Pentecost ;  and  the  handmaiden  and  the  children,  as  well  as  the  old  men 
and  the  servants,  receive  of  that  universal  gift.  Therefore  sacerdotal  claims, 
special  functions,  privileged  classes,  are  alien  to  the  spirit  of  Christianity, 
and  blasphemies  against  the  inspiring  God.  If  "  one  is  your  master,  all  ye 
are  brethren."  And  if  we  have  all  been  made  to  drink  into  one  Spirit,  then 
no  longer  hath  any  man  dominion  over  our  faith  for  power  for  us  to  intervene 
and  to  intercede  with  God.  The  promise  of  the  early  history  was  that  of  a 
spirit  of  swift  energy,  of  transforming  power,  acting  upon  the  moral  nature 
granted  to  the  whole  Church,  and  filling  the  whole  humanity  of  the  men  to 
whom  He  was  granted ;  filHng  in  the  measure,  of  course,  of  their  receptivity ;  ^ 
filling,  as  the  great  sea  does,  all  the  creeks  and  the  indentations  along  the 
shore.  The  deeper  the  creek,  the  deeper  the  water  in  it ;  the  further 
inland  it  runs,  the  further  will  the  refreshing  sea  water  penetrate  the  bosom 
of  the  continent.  And  so  each  man,  according  to  his  character,  stature, 
circumstances,  and  all  the  varying  conditions  which  determine  his  power  of 
receptivity,  will  receive  a  varying  measure  of  that  gift ;  and  yet  it  is  meant 
that  all  shall  be  full.  The  little  vessel,  the  tiny  cup,  as  the  great  cistern 
and  the  enormous  vat,  each  contains  according  to  its  capacity.  And  if  all 
are  filled,  then  this  quick  Spirit  must  have  the  power  to  influence  all  the 
provinces  of  human  nature,  must  touch  the  intellectual,  must  touch  the 
moral,  must  touch  the  spiritual.  The  temporary  manifestations  and  extra- 
ordinary signs  of  His  power  may  well  drop  away  as  the  flower  drops  away 
when  the  fruit  has  set.  The  operations  of  the  Divine  Spirit  are  to  be  felt 
thrilling  through  all  the  nature,  and  every  part  of  the  man's  being  is  to  be 
recipient  of  the  power.  Just  as  when  you  take  a  candle  and  plunge  it  into 
a  jar  of  oxygen  it  blazes  up,  so  my  poor  human  nature,  immersed  in  that 
Divine  Spirit,  baptized  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  shall  flame  in  all  its  parts  into 
unsuspected  and  hitherto  inexperienced  brightness.  Such  are  the  elements 
of  the  promise  of  Pentecost 


THE   REWARD   OF  CHRIST'S  CONFLICT. 

IVko  for  the  joy  that  was  set  before  Htm,  endured  the  Cross,  despising 
shame,  and  hath  sat  down  at  the  right  hand  of  the  throne  of  God. — 
Heb.  xii.  2. 

Our  Lord's  whole  life  is  represented  as  being  shaped  and 
influenced  by  a  vivid  realisation  of  an  unseen  reward ;  which 
vivid  realisation  He  owed  to  His  faith.  What  was  this  unseen  reward  ?  The 
"joy  that  was  set  before  Him."  The  image  of  the  race  is  carried  on  here 
from  the  previous  verses.  At  the  winning-post  hangs  the  glittering  crown, 
full  in  the  view  of  the  runners  ;  so  shining  afar,  and  ever  in  the  eye  of  that 
fighting,  struggling  Captain  of  our  salvation,  hung  the  gleaming  glories  of 
the  "joy  that  was  set  before  Him." 

And  what  was  the  joy  ?  I  think  the  subsequent  words  must  be  taken 
as  being  the  answer  to  it :  "for  the  joy  that  was  set  before  Him"  was 
the  joy  into  which  He  has  entered — viz.,  His  session  at  the  right  hand  of 
God,  or,  in  other  words,  the  lifting  up  of  His  manhood  into  a  participation 
with  Divinity. 

Along  with  the  strong  impulse  of  obedience  to  the  will  of  the  Father, 
and  in  perfect  harmony  with  self-forgetting  and  supreme  love  to  tlie  whole 
world,  another  strand  of  the  gold  cord  which  bound  our  great  sacrifice  to 
the  horns  of  the  altar  was  the  thought  of  the  joy  that  was  to  come  to  Him- 
self.    That  joy  was  to  sit  at  the  right  hand  of  the  Throne. 

And  if  this  seems  to  introduce  an  element  of  self-regard  into  our  Lord's 
passion,  which  strikes  cold  on  our  hearts,  let  us  not  forget  that  all  that 
exaltation  is  for  our  sakes,  that  it  was  all  left  for  our  sakes  by  the 
Incarnate  Word,  and  that  all  which  He  won  by  His  Cross  and  Passion  was 
but  the  entrance  of  His  manhood  into  the  glory  which  was  His  own  before 
the  world  was.  Nor  are  we  to  forget  that  He  is  ^^for  us  entered"  witliin 
the  veil,  nor  that  His  exaltation  is  in  order  to  His  saving  to  the  uttermost 
them  who  come  unto  God  by  Him.  As  He  did  not  look  upon  His  equality 
with  God,  before  His  incarnation,  as  a  thing  to  be  eagerly  retained,  so  He 
did  not  look  upon  His  sitting  on  the  Father's  Throne,  after  His  passion, 
as  a  thing  to  be  eagerly  desired  for  Himself  alone,  but  chiefly  because  by 
it  He  could  carry  on  and  complete  His  great  work.  So  that  we  may 
allowably  say,  "The  joy  of  the  Lord  is  the  salvation  of  His  servants." 
"  He  shall  see  of  the  travail  of  His  soul  and  be  satisfied,"  and  the  joy  of 
the  shepherd  when  he  bears  the  lost  sheep  on  his  shoulders,  and  the  joy 
of  the  householder  when  the  lost  treasure  is  recovered,  and  the  joy  of  a 
true  elder  brother  when  the  prodigal  comes  home — are  all  blended  in  that 
great  motive  which  nerved  Jesus  for  His  Cross,  and  form  part,  and  the  chief 
part,  of  the  joy  that  was  set  before  Him. 

154 


THE   PATH   OF  SUFFERING. 

For  in  that  He  Himself  hath  suffered  being  tempted^  He  is  able  to  succour 
them  that  are  tempted. — Heb.  ii.  l8. 

J  ,  Tins  issue  of  our  Lord's  life  He  had  to  keep  before  Himself  by 
a  constant  effort.  He  trod  the  same  path  which  others  have  to 
tread.  He,  too,  like  Abraham  and  Moses,  and  the  others  of  the  host  of 
the  faithful,  had  to  keep  His  conviction  of  an  unseen  good,  bright  and 
powerful,  by  an  effort  of  will,  while  surrounded  by  the  illusions  of  time 
and  sense.  His  faith  grasped  the  unseen,  and  in  the  strength  of  that  con- 
viction impelled  Him  to  do  and  suffer. 

We  have  the  same  path  to  tread.  We,  too,  if  we  are  to  do  anything 
in  this  world  befitting  or  like  our  Master,  must  rule  our  lives  in  the  same 
fashion  as  our  Master  ruled  His.  That  is  to  say,  we  must  subordinate 
rigidly  the  present,  and  all  its  temptations,  fascinations,  cares,  joys,  and 
sorrows,  to  that  far-off  issue  discerned  by  faith  and  by  faith  alone,  but  by 
faith  clearly  ascertained  to  be  the  one  real  substance,  the  one  thing  for 
which  it  is  worth  while  to  live  and  blessed  to  die.  A  life  of  faith,  a  life  of 
effort  to  keep  ever  before  us  the  unseen  crown,  will  be  a  life  noble  and 
loft}'.  We  are  ever  tempted  to  forget  it.  The  "Man  with  the  Muck- 
rake," in  John  Bunyan's  homely  parable,  was  so  occupied  with  the  foul- 
smelling  dung-heap  that  he  thought  a  treasure,  that  he  had  no  eyes  for  the 
crown  hanging  a  hair's  breadth  over  his  head.  A  hair's  breadth  ?  Yes  ! 
And  yet  the  distance  was  as  great  as  if  the  universe  had  lain  between. 

Every  man's  life  is  ennobled  in  the  measure  in  which  he  lives  for  a 
future.  Even  if  it  be  a  shabby  and  near  future,  in  so  far  as  it  is  future, 
such  a  life  is  better  than  a  life  that  is  lived  for  the  present.  A  man  that 
gets  his  wages  once  in  a  twelvemonth  will  generally  be,  in  certain  respects, 
a  higher  type  of  man  than  he  who  gets  them  once  a  week.  To  take 
far-off  views  is,  pro  tanto,  as  far  as  it  goes — an  elevation  of  humanity.  To 
be  absorbed  in  the  present  moment  is  to  be  degraded  to  the  level  of  the 
beasts. 

The  Christian  **  prize,"  which  faith  makes  clear  to  us,  has  this  great 
advantage  over  all  other  objects  of  pursuit — that  it  is  too  far  off  ever  to  be 
reached  and  left  behind.  Men  in  this  world  win  their  objects  or  lose  them  ; 
but  in  either  case  they  pass  them  and  leave  them  in  the  rear.  Whether 
is  it  better  to  creep,  like  the  old  mariners,  from  headland  to  headland, 
altering  your  course  every  day  or  two,  or  strike  boldly  out  into  the  great 
deep,  steering  for  an  unseen  port  on  the  other  side  of  the  world  that  you 
never  beheld,  though  you  know  it  is  there  ?  Which  will  be  the  nobler 
voyage  ? 

If  one  looks  at  the  lives  of  most  professing  Christians,  it  looks  as  if  we 
had  but  a  very  dim  vision  of  this  glory.  And  surely,  if  there  is  one  thing 
that  needs  to  be  rung  into  our  ears,  compassed  about  as  we  are  by  the 
fascinations,  temptations,  and  occupations  of  this  life,  it  is  that  old  exhorta- 
tion, never  more  needed  than  by  the  worldly-minded  Christians  of  this  day, 
"  Set  your  affections  on  things  above,  not  on  things  on  the  earth."  Take 
Christ  for  your  example,  and  live,  "  having  respect  unto  the  recompense  of 
the  reward." 

155 


"HE   ENDURED   THE   CROSS." 

Behoved  it  not  the  Christ  to  suffer  these  things,  and  to  enter  into  His 
glory  ? — Luke  xxiv,  26. 

"  Endured  the  Cross  "  does  not  merely  mean  **  experienced  the 
pain,"  but  it  means  stood  steadfast  under,  endured  in  the  fullest 
and  noblest  sense  of  the  word.  Many  a  man  endures  suffering  in  the 
lower  sense  who  does  not  endure  it  in  the  higher  ;  but  Christ  did  in  both. 
And,  of  course,  that  endurance  of  the  Cross  was  not  confined  to  the 
moments  of  His  life  when  the  actual  physical  pain  of  the  Crucifixion  was 
upon  Him,  not  confined  to  that  last  day,  but  stretched  through  His  whole 
career.  Therefore  we  may  apply  this  "endurance,"  not  only  to  the 
moment  of  actual  physical  sufferin'^s,  but  to  the  whole  of  our  Lord's  earthly 
career,  the  patient,  heroic  steadfastness  with  which  He  bore  them. 

That  is  an  aspect  of  our  Lord's  character  that  is  not  often  enough 
presented  to  our  minds.  *'  The  velvet  glove  has  hidden  the  iron  hand,"  in 
popular  apprehension.  Temptations  which  shatter  feebler  resolutions,  as 
the  waves  some  feel)le  dyke,  broke  like  the  vain  spray  against  that  break- 
water ;  His  fixed  will — that  will  hke  adamant,  that  could  not  be  moved, 
that  could  not  be  broken,  that  never  faltered — led  Him  to  tread,  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end  of  His  career,  a  path  every  step  of  which  was  strewed 
with  hot  ploughshares  and  sharp  swords.  He  trod  it  with  bleeding  and 
with  seared  feet,  but  without  a  quiver  and  without  a  falter ;  and,  as  the 
hour  drew  near,  we  read  that  "  He  steadfastly  set  His  face" — made  it  hard 
as  a  flint — to  go  to  Jerusalem,  impelled  by  that  threefold,  mighty  force  of 
obedience  to  the  Father,  love  to  man,  and  vision  of  the  glory,  so  that  His 
disciples  were  struck  with  wonder  and  awe  at  the  fixed  determination 
stamped  on  the  settled  countenance,  and  manifested  in  the  eager  steps 
which  outran  them  on  the  rocky  road  to  the  Cross.  That  heroic  endurance 
must  be  ours  too,  if  we  are  not  to  rot  in  selfish  and  inglorious  ease.  Life 
at  first  niny  seem  gay  and  brilliant,  a  place  for  recreation  or  profit  or 
pleasure,  but  we  very  soon  find  out  that  it  is  a  sand-strewn  wrestling- 
ground.  Many  flowers  cannot  grow  where  are  the  feet  of  the  runner  and 
the  strife  of  the  combatants.  The  first  thing  done  to  make  an  arena  for 
wrestlers  is  to  take  away  the  turf  and  the  daisies,  then  to  beat  the  soil  down 
hard  and  flat.  And  so  our  lives  get  flattened,  stripped  of  their  beauty  and 
their  fragrance,  because  they  are  not  meant  to  be  gardens,  they  are  meant 
to  be  wrestling-grounds.  There  comes  to  every  life  that  is  worth  living 
h.ours  of  sacrifice  when  duty  can  only  be  done  at  the  cost  of  a  bleeding 
heart.  Every  man  that  is  not  the  devil's  servant  has  to  carry  a  cross,  and 
to  be  fastened  to  it,  if  he  will  do  his  I^Lastcr's  work.  Besides  which 
crucifixion  in  service,  there  are  all  the  other  common  sorrows  storming  in 
upon  us,  so  that  sometimes  it  is  as  much  as  a  man  can  do  not  to  be  swept 
away  by  the  current,  but  to  keep  his  footing  in  mid-channel 

156 


NO  CROSS,    NO   CROWN. 

Be  thou  faithful  unto  deaths  and  I  will  give  thee  the  crown  of  life.  — 
Rev.  ii.  lo. 

The  way  to  endure  the  cross  is  to  look  unto  the  crown,  and  the 
Jtme  5.    ^j^j.jgj^    Q^  jj^g  (-j.Qgg  jjg  proclaimed,  "  It  is  finished."    But  the 

ending  of  the  work  on  the  Cross  was  but  the  beginning  of  a  form  of  Kis 
work  for  us,  which  shall  never  cease  until  the  trumpet  of  victor>'  shall  sound 
"  It  is  done  ! "  when  the  world  has  yielded  to  His  love.  He  works  for  us, 
with  us,  and  in  us,  as  Lord  of  Providence  and  King  of  Grace,  sustaining 
and  upholding  us  in  all  our  weakness,  and  tending  the  smoky  flame  of  our 
dim  faith  till  it  bursts  into  clear  radiance.  The  Captain  has  gone  up  from 
the  field,  and  His  soldiers  are  still  in  it  But  He  has  not  left  them  to 
struggle  alone.  He  sits  on  high,  looking  down  on  us  still  fighting  in  the 
arena  with  wild  beasts ;  but  He  does  not  only  behold,  but  also  helps  our 
conflict,  as  Stephen,  looking  up,  saw  Him  *'  standing,"  not  sitting,  at  the 
right  hand  of  God,  as  if  He  had  sprung  to  His  feet  to  succour  and  receive 
the  martyr-spirit.  Nor  is  He  exalted  only  to  work  for  and  in  us,  or  to 
shed  on  our  hearts  the  plenteous  rain  of  His  heavenly  influences.  He  has 
entered  within  the  veil  as  our  Great  High  Priest,  to  make  intercession  for 
us,  so  making  us  confident  that  His  great  sacrifice  is  ever  present  to  the 
Divine  mind,  as  determining  its  acts  towards  those  who  trust  in  Christ. 
Nor  is  our  share  in  His  exaltation  limited  by  these  great  privileges,  for  He 
has  gone  to  prepare  a  place  for  us  ;  and  dimly  as  we  may  know  what  that 
means,  we  know,  at  all  events,  that  but  for  Christ's  presence  there  Heaven 
would  be  no  place  for  us.  Nor  is  this  all ;  for,  if  we  have  given  our  hearts 
to  Him,  and  are  joined  to  the  Lord  by  faith,  we  are,  in  a  very  profound 
sense,  one  spirit  with  Him. 

So  real  is  the  union  between  us  and  Jesus  that  it  cannot  be  that  the 
Head  shall  be  glorified  and  the  members  have  no  share  in  the  glory.  The 
Captain  of  Salvation  is  laurelled  and  crowned,  and  all  His  soldiers,  the 
weakest  and  the  sinfulest  amongst  them,  if  only  they  are  knit  to  Him  by 
humble  faith,  share  in  His  victory,  receive  from  His  Throne  showers  of 
grace  and  blessing,  which  He  pours  down  upon  them,  are  inspired  by  His 
continual  presence  who  "teaches  their  hands  to  war  and  their  fingers  to 
fight,"  and  will  be  brought  at  last  by  Him  coming  for  them  again,  that 
"  Where  He  is  there  His  servants  may  be  also." 

And  so  each  of  us,  if  only  we  take  Christ  for  our  Lord  and  Commander, 
may  say  in  the  calmness  of  a  confident  hope  what  David's  soldier  said  to 
him  in  the  heroism  of  his  self-devotion,  "As  my  Lord  the  King  liveth,  in 
what  place  soever  my  Lord  the  King  shall  be,  whether  in  life  or  death, 
there  also  shall  Thy  servant  be." 

157 


♦»  DESPISING   THE   SHAME." 

They  therefore  departed  from  the  presence  of  the  cotinctl,  rejoicing  that  they 
xvere  counted  worthy  to  suffer  dishonour  for  the  Name. — Acts  v.  41. 

The  struggles  of  the  Captain  of  our  salvation  are  the  pattern  for 
June  6.  *"  *" 

His  people,  in  what  I  may  call  the  wholesome  and  wise  con- 
tempt for  the  ills  that  bar  His  progress  :  "  Despising  the  shame." 

Contempt  is  an  ugly  word,  but  there  are  things  which  deserve  it ;  and 
though  we  do  not  often  associate  the  idea  of  it  with  the  meek  and  gentle 
Christ,  there  were  things  in  His  life  on  which  it  was  exercised.  He 
despised  the  contumely.  That  is  to  say,  He  reduced  it  to  its  true  insig- 
nificance by  taking  the  measure  of  it,  and  looking  at  it  as  it  was.  And 
that  is  what  I  want  you  to  feel  we  have  all  of  us  in  our  power.  There  are 
hosts  of  difficulties  in  our  lives  as  Christian  men,  which  will  be  big  or  little 
just  as  we  choose  to  make  them.  You  can  either  look  at  them  through  a 
magnifying  or  a  diminishing  glass.  The  magnitude  of  most  of  the  trifles 
that  affect  us  may  be  altered  by  our  way  of  looking  at  them. 

Learn  the  practical  wisdom  of  minimising  the  hindrances  to  your 
Christian  career,  pulling  them  down  to  their  true  smallness.  Do  not  let 
them  come  to  you  and  impose  upon  you  with  the  notion  that  they  are  big 
and  formidable  ;  the  most  of  them  are  only  white  sheets,  and  a  rustic 
boor  behind  them,  like  a  vulgar  ghoBt.  You  go  up  to  them,  and  they  will 
be  small  immediately!  ''Despise  the  shame  !"  and  it  disappears.  And 
how  is  that  to  be  done?  In  two  ways.  Go  up  the  mountain,  and  the 
things  in  the  plain  will  look  very  small  ;  the  higher  you  rise,  the  more 
insignificant  they  will  seem.  Hold  fellowship  with  God,  and  live  up 
beside  your  Master,  and  the  threatening  foes  here  will  seem  very,  very 
unformidable. 

Another  way  is  :  pull  up  the  curtain,  and  gaze  on  what  is  behind  it 
The  low  foot-hills  that  lie  at  the  base  of  some  Alpine  country  may  look  high 
when  seen  from  the  plain,  as  long  as  the  snowy  summits  are  wrapped  in 
mist ;  but  when  a  little  puff  of  wind  comes  and  clears  away  the  fog  from  the 
lofty  peaks,  nobody  looks  at  the  little  green  hills  in  front.  So  the  world's 
hindrances,  and  the  world's  difficulties  and  cares,  they  look  very  lofty  till 
the  cloud  lifts.  And  when  we  see  the  great  white  summits,  everything 
lower  does  not  seem  so  very  high  after  all.  Look  to  Jesus,  and  that  will 
dwarf  all  difficulties. 

158 


OUR   COMMANDER'S   AND   OUR  TRIUMPH. 

We  have  such  a  High  Priest,  who  sat  down  on  the  right  hand  of  the 
throne  of  the  Majesty  in  the  heavens. — Heb.  viii.  I. 

The  new  thing  which  accrued  because  of  Christ's  Incarnation 
and  sacrifice  was  that,  as  this  text  puts  it  with  great  emphasis, 
*^ Jesus  sat  at  the  right  hand  of  the  Throne  "  ;  or,  to  put  it  into  other  words, 
that  the  humanity  of  our  Lord  and  Brother  was  Hfted  up  to  a  participation 
in  Divinity  and  the  rule  of  the  universe.  That  "sitting"  expresses  Rest, 
as  from  a  finished  and  perfect  work,  a  Rest  which  is  not  inactivity  j 
Dominion,  extending  over  all  the  universe  ;  and  Judgment.  These  three — 
Rest,  Dominion,  Judgment — are  the  prerogatives  of  the  Man  Jesus.  That 
is  what  He  won  by  His  bloody  passion  and  sacrifice. 

And  now  what  has  that  to  do  with  us?  We  are  to  think  of  this 
triumph  of  the  Commander  as  being  a  revelation  and  a  prophecy  for  us. 
Nobody  knows  anything  about  the  future  life  except  by  means  of  Jesus 
Christ.  We  have  no  knowledge  of  another  world  except  as  we  believe  in 
the  Resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  from  the  dead  and  His  Ascension  up  on 
high.  We  may  have  dreams,  we  may  have  hopes,  we  may  have  fore- 
bodings, we  may  argue  from  analogy,  we  may  get  the  length  of  saying 
**  peradventure,"  "probably"  ;  but  we  cannot  say  we  know,  unless  we  will 
consent  to  take  all  our  light,  and  all  our  knowledge,  and  all  our  certitude, 
and  all  hope  from  that  great  Lord  whose  death  and  resurrection  are  to  the 
whole  v/orld  the  only  guarantee  of  the  future,  whose  presence  there  is  the 
only  light  in  all  the  darkness. 

In  His  exaltation  to  the  Throne  a  new  hope  dawns  on  humanity.  If  we 
believe  that  the  Man  Jesus  sits  on  the  throne  of  the  universe,  we  have  a  new 
conception  of  what  is  possible  for  humanity.  If  a  perfect  human  nature 
have  entered  into  the  participation  of  the  Divine,  our  natures,  too,  may  be 
perfect,  and  what  He  is  and  where  He  is,  there,  too,  we  may  hope  to  come. 
So  this  Epistle  in  the  secpnd  chapter,  quoting  the  grand  words  of  the 
Psalm,  which  sometimes  and  in  some  moods  seems  more  like  irony  than 
revelation:  "Thou  hast  crowned  Him  with  glory  and  honour;  Thou 
hast  put  all  things  under  Plis  feet,"  comments  :  "  We  see  not  yet  all  things 
put  under  Him."  Nay,  much  the  contrary.  Look  at  all  this  weary  world, 
with  its  miseries  and  its  cares.  What  has  become  of  the  grand  dream  of 
the  psalm?  Has  it  all  gone  into  moonshine  and  vapour  ?  "We  see  not 
yet  all  things  put  under  Him."  Weary  centuries  have  rolled  away,  and  it 
does  not  seem  a  bit  nearer.  "  But  we  see  Jesus  crowned  with  glory  and 
honour."  He,  and  not  all  these  failures  and  abortions  of  existing  manhood 
— He  is  the  type  that  God  means  us  to  be,  and  what  we  all  may  one  day 
come  to. 

159 


WATCHFULNESS  AND   WORK. 

Blessed  ts  that  servant  whom  his  Lord ^  when  He  cometh,  shall  find 'so 
doing.  Of  a  truth  I  say  unto  you,  that  He  will  make  him  ruler  over  all 
that  He  hath. — Luke  xii.  43,  44. 

The   temptdtion   for  any  one  who  is  much  occupied  with  the 
June  8. 

hope  of  some  great  change  and  betterment  in  the  near  future 

is  to   be  restless  and   unable   to  settle   down   to  his  work,  and   to  yield 

to  distaste  of  the  humdrum  duties  of  every  day.     If  some  man  that  kept 

a   little  chandler's  shop   in  a   back   street   was  expecting   to   be  made  a 

king  to-morrow,  he  would   not    be   likely  to   look   after   his   poor  trade 

with  great  diligence.     So  we  find  in  the  Apostle   Paul's  second  letter — 

that   to   the   Thessalonians — that   he   had   to   encounter,    as   well   as   he 

could,  the   tendency  of  hope   to  make  men  restless,  and   to  insist  upon 

the  thought — which  is  the  same  lesson  as  is  taught  us  by  this  passage — 

that  if  a  man   hoped,   then  he  had  with  quietness  to  work  and  eat  his 

own  bread,  and  not  be  shaken  in  mind. 

*'  Blessed   is   that   servant  whom   his   Lord,  when   He  cometh,   shall 

find    so   doing."     It   may  seem   humble   work   to   serve   out   hunches  of 

bread  and  pots  of  black  broth  to  the  family  of  slaves,  when  the  steward  is 

expecting   the  coming   of  the    master  of  the   house,  and   every  nerve  is 

tingling  with  anticipation.     But  it  is  steadying  work,  and  it  is  blessed  work. 

It   is   better  that   a  man  should   be   found  doing  the  homeliest  duty  as 

the  outcome  of  his  great  expectations  of  the  coming  of  his  Master,  than 

that  he  should  be  fidgetting  and  restless  and  looking  only  at  that  thought 

till  it  unfits  him  for  his  common  tasks.     Who  was  it  who,  sitting  playing 

a  game  of  chess,  and  being  addressed  by  »ome  scandalised  disciple  with 

the  question,   *'  WTiat  would  you  do  if  Jesus  Christ  came,  and  you  were 

playing  your  game?"  answered,  **I  would  finish  it"?      The  best  way  for 

a  steward  to  be  ready  for  the  Master,  and  to  show  that  he  is  watching, 

is  that  he  should  be  "  found  so  doing  "  the  humble  tasks  of  his  stewardship. 

The  two  women  that  were  squatting  on  either  side  of  the  millstone,  and 

helping  each  other  to  whirl  the  handle  round  in  that  night,  were  in  the  right 

place,  and  the  one  that  was  taken  had  no  cause  to  regret  that  she  was  not 

more  religiously  employed.     The  watchful   servant   should   be  a  working 

servant. 

160 


REST  AND   RULE. 

Blessed  ts  that  servant  whom,  when  his  Lord  conieth^  He  shall  Jind  so 
doing.  Verity,  I  say  unto  you.  That  He  shall  set  hitn  over  all  that  He 
hath. — Matt.  xxiv.  46,  47. 

Verily  I  say  unto  you,  He  shall  "gird  Himself,  and  make  them  to 
sit  down  to  meat,  and  will  come  forth  and  serve  them."  I  do 
not  know  that  there  is  a  more  wonderful  promise,  with  more  light  lying  in 
its  darkness,  in  all  Scripture  than  that.  Jesus  Christ  continues  in  the 
heavens  to  be  found  in  "  the  form  of  a  servant."  As  here  He  girded 
Himself  with  the  towel  of  humiliation  in  the  upper  room,  so  there  He  girds 
Himself  with  the  robes  of  His  Imperial  Majesty,  and  uses  all  His  powers  for 
the  nourishment  and  blessedness  of  His  servants.  His  everlasting  motto  is, 
"  I  am  among  you  as  one  that  serveth."  On  earth  His  service  was  to  wash 
His  disciples'  feet ;  in  heaven  the  pure  foot  contracts  no  stain  and  needs 
no  basin.  But  in  heaven  He  still  serves,  and  serves  by  spreading  a  table, 
and,  as  a  king  might  do  at  some  ceremonial  feasts,  waiting  on  the  astonished 
guests.  Repose,  in  contrast  with  the  girded  loins  and  the  weary  waiting 
of  the  midnight  watch  ;  nourishment  and  the  satisfaction  of  all  desires  j 
joy  ;  society, — all  these  things,  and  who  knows  how  much  more,  that  we 
shall  have  to  get  there  to  understand,  lie  in  that  metaphor,  "Blessed  is 
that  servant "  who  is  served  by  the  JNIaster  and  nourished  by  His  presence. 
It  is  a  wonderful  confession  of  *'  the  weariness,  the  fever,  and  the  fret," 
the  hunger  and  loneliness  of  earthly  experience,  that  the  thought  of  heaven 
as  the  opposite  of  all  these  things  should  have  almost  swallowed  up  the 
other  thought  with  which  our  Lord  associates  it  here.  He  would  not  have 
us  think  only  of  repose.  He  unites  with  that  representation,  so  fascinating 
to  us  weary  and  heavy-laden,  the  other  of  administrative  authority.  He 
will  set  him  "over  all  that  He  hath."  The  relation  between  earthly 
faithfulness  and  heavenly  service  is  the  same  in  essence  as  that  between 
the  various  stages  of  our  work  here.  The  reward  for  work  here  is  more 
work  ;  a  wider  field,  greater  capacities.  And  what  depths  of  authority, 
of  new  dignity,  of  royal  supremacy,  lie  in  these  solemn  and  mysterious 
words  I  know  not :  "  He  will  set  him  over  all  that  He  hath."  My  union 
with  Christ  is  to  be  so  close  as  that  all  His  is  mine  ;  and  I  am  master  of 
it.  But  at  all  events  this  we  can  say,  that  the  faithfulness  here  leads  to 
larger  service  yonder  ;  and  that  none  of  the  aptitudes  and  capacities  which 
have  been  developed  in  us  here  on  earth  will  want  a  sphere  when  we  pass 
yonder. 

So  let  watchfulness  lead  to  faithfulness,  and  watchful  faithfulness  and 
faithful  watchfulness  will  lead  to  repose  which  is  activity,  and  rule  which 
is  rest. 

161  M 


MEMORY  AND  HOPE. 

When  my  soul  fainied  in  tne,  I  remembered  the  Lord. — ^JONAH  ii.  7, 

Memory  and  Hope  are  tv/ins.     The  latter  can  only  work  with 
Jxine  10. 

the  materials  supplied  by  the  former.     Hope  could  paint  nothing 

on  the  blank  canvas  of  the  future  unless  its  palette  was  charged  by  Memory. 
Memory  brings  the  yarn  which  Hope  weaves. 

Our  thankful  remembrance  of  a  past  which  was  filled  and  moulded  by 
God's  perpetual  presence  and  care  ought  to  make  us  sure  of  a  future  which 
shall,  in  like  manner,  be  moulded.  "Thou  hast  been  my  help"  :  if  we 
can  say  that,  then  we  may  confidently  pray,  and  be  sure  of  the  answer, 
"  Leave  me  not,  nor  forsake  me,  O  God  of  my  salvation."  And  if  we  feel, 
as  memory  teaches  us  to  feel,  that  God  has  been  working  for  us,  and  with 
us,  we  can  say  with  another  psalmist,  "Thy  mercy,  O  Lord,  endureth 
for  ever.  Forsake  not  the  work  of  Thine  own  hands  "  ;  and  we  can  rise  to 
His  confidence  :  "  The  Lord  will  perfect  that  which  conccrneth  me." 

Our  remembrance,  even  of  our  imperfections,  and  our  losses,  and  our 
sorrows,  may  minister  to  our  hope.  For  surely  the  life  of  every  man  on 
earth,  but  most  eminently  the  life  of  a  Christian  man,  is  utterly  unintel- 
ligible, a  mockery  and  a  delusion  and  an  impossibility,  if  there  be  a  God 
at  all,  unless  it  prophesies  of  a  region  in  which  imperfection  will  be  ended, 
aspirations  will  be  fulfilled,  desires  will  be  satisfied.  We  have  so  much 
that  unless  we  are  to  have  a  great  deal  more,  we  had  better  have  had 
nothing.  We  have  so  much  that  if  there  be  a  God  at  all,  we  must  have 
a  great  deal  more.  The  new  moon  with  a  ragged  edge,  even  in  its  imper- 
fection beautiful,  is  a  prophet  of  the  complete  resplendent  orb.  '*  On  earth 
the  broken  arc,  in  heaven  the  perfect  round." 

The  memory  of  defeat  may  be  the  parent  of  the  hope  of  victory.  The 
stone  Ebenezer,  "Hitherto  hath  the  Lord  helped  us,"  was  lifted  to  com- 
memorate a  victory  that  had  been  won  on  the  very  site  where  Israel, 
fighting  the  same  foes,  had  once  been  beaten.  There  is  no  remembrance 
of  failure  so  mistaken  as  that  which  takes  the  past  failure  as  certain  to  be 
repeated  in  the  future.  Surely,  though  we  have  fallen  seventy  times  seven 
— that  is  490,  is  it  not  ? — at  the  491st  attempt  we  may,  and  if  we  trust  in 
God  we  shall,  succeed. 

162 


GOD'S  GIFT  OF  HIMSELF  TO  US. 

I  will  be  their  God,  in  truth  and  in  righteousness. — Zech.  viii.  8. 

These  words  go  far  deeper  than  the  necessary  Divine  relation 
to  all  His  creatures.  He  is  a  God  to  every  star  that  burns,  and 
to  every  worai  that  creeps,  and  to  every  gnat  that  dances  for  a  moment. 
But  there  is  a  closer  relation,  and  more  blessed,  than  that.  He  is  a  God 
to  every  man  that  lives,  lavishing  upon  him  manifestations  of  His  Divinity, 
and  sustaining  him  in  life.  But  within  these  great  and  wondrous  universal 
relations  which  spring  from  the  very  fact  of  creative  power  and  creatural 
dependence,  there  is  a  tender,  a  truer  relationship  of  heart  to  heart,  of 
spirit  to  spirit,  which  is  set  forth  as  the  prerogative  of  the  men  that 
trust  in  Jesus  Christ.  The  special  does  not  contradict  or  deny  the  universal, 
the  universal  does  not  exclude  the  special  :  '*  I  will  be  a  God  to  them,"  in 
a  deeper,  more  blessed,  soul-satisfying,  and  vital  sense  than  to  others 
around  them. 

And  what  lies  in  that  great  promise  passes  the  wit  of  man  and  the 
tongues  of  angels  fully  to  conceive  and  tell.  All  that  lies  in  that  majestic 
monosyllable,  which  is  shorthand  for  life  and  light  and  all  perfectness, 
lived  in  a  living  person  who  has  a  heart,  that  word  God ; — all  that  is 
included  in  that,  God  will  be  to  you  and  me  if  we  like  to  have  Him  for 
such.  J^**I  will  be  a  God  to  them" — then  round  about  them  shall  be  cast 
the  bulwark  of  the  everlasting  arm  and  the  everlasting  purpose.  "  I  will 
be  a  God  to  them  " — then  in  all  dark  places  there  will  be  a  light,  and  in 
all  perplexities  there  will  be  a  path,  and  in  all  anxieties  there  will  be 
quietness,  and  in  all  troubles  there  will  be  a  hidden  light  of  joy,  and 
in  every  circumstance  life  will  be  saturated  with  an  Almighty  Presence 
which  shall  make  the  rough'  places  plain  and  the  crooked  things 
straight.  "  I  will  be  a  God  to  them  " — then  their  desires,  their  hunger- 
ings  after  blessedness,  their  seekings  after  good  need  no  longer  roam 
open-mouthed  and  empty  throughout  a  waste  world,  where  there  is  only 
scanty  fodder,  enough  to  keep  them  from  expiring,  and  never  food 
enough  to  satisfy  them  ;  but  in  Him  longings  and  hopes  will  al)  find  their 
appropriate  satisfaction.  And  there  will  be  rest  in  God,  and  whatsoever 
aspirations  after  lofi.ier  goodness,  and  whatsoever  base  hankerings  still 
lingering  may  have  to  be  cherished  and  fought,  the  strength  of  a  present 
God  will  enable  us  to  aspire,  and  not  to  be  disappointed,  and  to  cast 
ourselves  into  the  conflict,  and  be  ever  victorious.  "I  will  be  to  them 
a  God "  is  the  same  as  to  say  that  everything  which  my  complex  nature 
can  require  I  shall  find  in  Him. 

163 


OUR  GOD  FOR  EVER  AND  EVER. 

/  will  be  to  them  a  God,  and  they  shall  be  to  Me  a  people. — Heb.  viii.  lO. 

God's  gift  of  Himself  to  me  teaches  that  all  that  Godhood,  in 
all  the  incomprehensible  sweep  of  its  attributes,  is  on  my  side, 
if  I  will.  They  tell  us  that  there  are  rays  in  the  spectrum  which  no  eye 
can  see,  but  which  yet  have  mightier  chemical  and  other  influences  than 
those  that  are  visible.  The  spectrum  of  God  is  not  all  visible,  but  beyond 
the  limits  of  comprehension  there  lie  dark  energies  which  are  full  of  blessed- 
ness and  of  power  for  us.  **  I  will  be  to  them  a  God."  We  must  under- 
stand something  of  what  that  name  signifies ;  and  all  that  is  enlisted  for  us. 
There  is  much  which  that  name  signifies  that  we  do  not  understand ;  and 
all  that,  too,  is  working  on  our  side. 

Now,  remember  that  this  giving  of  God  to  us  by  Himself  is  all  con- 
centrated in  one  historical  act.  He  gave  Himself  to  us  v.hen  He  spared 
not  His  only  begotten  Son.  This  text  is  one  of  the  articles  of  the  New 
Covenant.  And  what  sealed  and  confirmed  all  the  articles  of  that  Covenant? 
The  blood  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  was  when  *'  God  spared  not  His  own  Sen," 
and  when  the  Son  spared  not  Himself  on  that  Cross  of  Calvary,  that  there 
came  to  pass  the  ratifjing  and  filling  out  and  perfecting  of  the  ancient 
typical  promise,  "  I  will  be  to  them  a  God."  There  was  the  unspeakable 
gift  in  which  God  was  given  to  humanity. 

Here  is  a  treasure — of  gold  lying  in  the  road.  Anybody  that  picks  it 
up  may  have  it ;  the  man  that  does  not  pick  it  up  does  not  get  it,  though 
it  is  there  for  him  to  lay  his  fingers  on.  Here  is  a  river  flowing  past  your 
door.  You  may  put  a  pipe  into  it,  and  bring  all  its  wealth  and  refreshment 
into  your  house,  and  use  it  for  the  quenching  of  your  thirst,  for  the  cleansing 
of  your  person,  for  the  cooking  of  your  victuals,  for  the  watering  of  your 
gardens.  And  here  is  all  the  fulness  of  God  welling  past  us.  But  Niagara 
may  thunder  close  by  a  man's  door,  and  he  may  perish  of  thirst.  *'  I  will 
be  to  them  a  God."  What  does  that  matter  if  I  do  not  turn  round  and 
say,  "O  Lord!  Thou  art  my  God?"  Nothing!  Beggars  come  to  your 
door,  and  you  give  them  a  bit  of  bread,  and  they  go  away,  and  you  find  it 
flung  round  the  corner  into  the  mud.  God  gives  us  Himself.  I  wonder 
how  many  of  us  have  tossed  the  gift  over  the  first  hedge,  and  left  it  there. 
Yet  all  the  while  we  are  dying  for  want  of  it,  and  do  not  knjw  that 
we  are. 

Brother !  you  have  to  enclose  a  bit  of  the  prairie  for  your  very  own, 
and  put  a  hedge  round  it,  and  cultivate  it,  and  you  will  get  abundant  fruits. 
You  have  to  translate  "their"  into  the  singular  possessive  pronoun,  and 
say  "mine,"  and  put  out  the  hand  of  faith,  and  make  Him  in  very  deed 
yours.     Then,  and  only  then,  is  this  giving  perfected. 

164 


MYSELF  FOR  GOD 

My  Beloved  is  tntne,  and  I  am  His. — Song  of  S.  ii.  l6. 

God  enters  into  loving  relations  with  me,  and  it  is  only  when  I 
June  18. 

am  melted  and  encouraged  by  the  perception  and  reception  of 

these  relations  that  there  comes  the  answering  throb  in  my  heart.    The  mirror 

in  our  spirit  has  the  other  one  reflected  upon  it ;  then  it  flings  back  its  own 

reflection  to  the  parent  glass.     God  comes  first  with  the  love  that  He  pours 

over  us  poor  creatures  ;  and  when  "  we  have  known  and  believed  the  love 

that  God  hath  to  us,"  then,  and  only  then,  do  we  throb  back  the  reflected, 

aye,  the  kindred,  kindred  love.     For  love  is  the  same  thing  in  the  Divine 

heart  and  in  my  heart.     In  the  other  bonds  that  unite  men  to  what  is  man's 

corresponds  to  what  is  God's.    My  faith  corresponds  to  His  faithfulness.    My 

dependence  corresponds  to  His  sufficiency.     My  weak  clinging  answers  to 

His  strong  grasp  ;  my  obedience  to  His  commanding.     But  my  love  not 

only  corresponds  to,  as  the  concave  does  to  the  convex,  but  it  assimilates 

to,  and  is  the  UkeHest  thing  in  the  creature  to  the  infinitude  of  the  Creator. 

And  so  there  is  a  parallel,  wonderful  and  blessed,  between  the  giving  love 

which  says,   "  I  will  be  to  them  a  God,"  and  the  recipient  love  which 

responds,  "We  are  to  Thee  a  people." 

Remember,  too,  that  not  only  is  there  this  general  resemblance,  but 
that  our  love  manifests  itself  to  God — I  was  going  to  say,  just  as  God's  love 
manifests  itself  to  us,  though,  of  course,  there  are  differences  that  I  do  not 
need  to  touch  upon  here,  in  the  act  of  self-surrender.  He  gave  Himself  to 
us.  Ay  !  and  we  may  use  another  form  of  speech  still  more  emphatic,  and 
say.  He  gave  up  Himself  For,  surely,  difficult  as  it  may  be  for  us  to  keep 
our  footing  in  those  lofty  heights  where  the  atmosphere  is  so  rare,  the  gift 
of  Jesus  Christ  was  surrender  ;  when  the  Father  spared  not  His  own  Son, 
but  delivered  Him  up  for  us  all ! 

Not  only  is  there  this  mutual  possession,  but  each  half,  when  cleft  and 
analysed,  reveals  the  necessity  for  a  similar  reciprocity.  For  God's  giving 
of  Himself  to  us  is  nothing  to  us  without  our  taking  of  God  for  ours  ;  and, 
in  hke  manner,  our  giving  of  ourselves  to  God  would  be  all  incomplete 
unless,  in  His  strange  love.  He  stooped  from  amidst  the  praises  of  Israel  to 
accept  the  poor  gifts  that  we  bring. 

16'; 


THE   SAINT'S  GIFT  TO   HIS   LORD. 

And  they  shall  be  Mine,  saith  the  Lord  of  Hosts,  in  the  day  that  I  do 
make,  even  a  peculiar  treasure. — Mal.  iii.  17. 

What  is  the  surrender  of  the  man  that  receives  the  love  of 
God  ?  In  what  region  of  my  nature  is  that  giving  up  of  myself 
most  imperative  and  blessed  ?  In  my  will.  The  will  is  the  man.  The 
centre-point  of  every  human  being  is  the  will,  and  it  is  no  use  for  us  to  talk 
about  our  having  given  ourselves  to  God,  in  response  and  in  thankfulness 
to  His  gift  of  Himself  to  us,  unless  we  come  and  say,  '*  Lord,  not  my  will, 
but  Thine  "  ;  and  bow  ourselves  in  unreluctant  and  constant  submission  to 
His  commandments  and  to  all  His  will.  We  give  ourselves  to  God  when, 
moved  by  His  giving  of  Himself  to  us,  we  yield  up  our  love  to  Him  ;  and 
love  never  rests  until  it  has  yielded  up  its  will  to  the  Beloved.  He 
indeed  gives,  asking  for  nothing ;  but  He  gives  in  a  still  deeper  sense, 
asking  for  everything — and  that  everything  is  myself.  And  I  yield  myself 
to  Him  in  the  measure  in  which  I  cast  my  thankful  love  upon  Him,  and 
then  bow  myself  as  His  servant,  in  humble  consecration,  to  Himself, 
with  all  my  heart  and  soul  and  mind  and  strength. 

"  They  shall  be  My  people."  That  is  wonderful !  It  is  strange  that  we 
can  imitate  God,  in  a  certain  fashion,  in  the  gift  of  self;  but  it  is  yet  more 
strange  and  blessed  that  God  accepts  that  gift,  and  counts  it  as  one  of  His 
treasures  to  possess  us.  One  of  the  psalmists  had  a  deep  insight  into  the 
miracle  of  the  Divine  condescension  when  he  said,  "He  was  extolled  with 
my  tongue."  Strange  that  the  loftiest  of  creatures  should  be  lifted  higher 
by  the  poor,  tremulous  lever  of  my  praises  ;  and  yet  it  is  so.  He  takes  as 
His  such  poor  creatures,  full  of  imperfection  and  tremulous  faith  and 
disproved  love,  as  you  and  I  know  ourselves  to  be,  and  He  says,  *'  My 
people."  "  They  shall  be  Mine  "  ;  my  jewels,  says  He,  "  in  the  day  which 
I  make."  Oh  !  it  sometimes  seems  to  me  that  it  is  more  wonderful  that 
God  should  take  me  for  His  than  that  He  should  give  me  Himself  for  mine. 

Have  you  given  yourself  to  Him  ?  Have  you  begun  where  He  begins, 
taking  first  the  gift  that  is  freely  given  to  you  of  God,  even  Jesus  Christ,  in 
whom  God  dwells,  and  who  makes  all  the  Godhead  yours,  for  your  very 
own?  Have  you  taken  God  for  yours,  by  faith  in  that  Lord  "who  loved 
me,  and  gave  Himself  for  me"?  And  then,  smitten  by  His  love,  and 
having  the  chains  of  self  melted  by  the  fire  of  His  great  mercy,  have  you  said  : 
"  Lo  !  truly  I  am  Thy  servant.  Thou  hast  loosed  my  bonds"  ?  You  never 
own  yourself  till  you  give  yourself  away ;  and  you  never  will  give  your- 
self to  God,  to  be  His,  unless,  with  all  your  heart  and  strenglh,  you  cling 
to  the  rock-truth,  that  God  has  given  Himself  to  every  man  that  will  take 
Him,  in  Jesus  Christ,  to  be  that  man's  God  for  ever  and  ever. 

166 


THE  NEW  COVENANT. 

This  is  the  covenant  that  I  will  make  with  them  after  those  days,  saith  the 
Lord. — Heb.  X.  i6. 

J  .-  We  can  scarcely  estimate  the  shock  to  a  primitive  Hebrew 
Christian  when  he  discovered  that  Judaism  was  to  fade  away. 
Such  an  earthquake  might  seem  to  leave  nothing  standing.  Now,  the 
great  object  of  this  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is  to  insist  on  that  truth,  and  to 
calm  the  early  Hebrew  Christians  under  it,  by  showing  them  that  the  dis- 
appears n^e  of  the  older  system  left  them  no  poorer,  but  infinitely  richer, 
inasmuch  as  all  that  was  in  it  was  more  perfectly  in  Christ's  Gospel.  The 
writer  has  accordingly  been  giving  his  strength  to  show  that  all  along  the 
line  Christianity  is  the  perfecting  of  Judaism,  in  its  Founder,  in  its  priest- 
hood, in  its  ceremonies,  in  its  Sabbath.  Here  he  touches  the  great  central 
thought  of  the  Old  Covenant  between  God  and  man,  and  he  falls  brck  upon 
the  strange  words  of  one  of  the  old  prophets.  Jeremiah  had  declared  as 
emphatically  as  he,  the  writer,  has  been  declaring,  how  the  ancient  system 
was  to  melt  away  and  be  absorbed  in  a  new  covenant  between  God  and 
man.  Is  there  any  other  instance  of  a  rehgion  which  on  the  one  side  pro- 
claims its  own  eternal  duration,  "  the  Word  of  the  Lord  endureth  for  ever," 
and  on  the  other  side  declares  that  it  is  to  be  abrogated,  antiquated,  and 
done  away  ?  The  writer  of  the  Epistle  had  learnt  from  sacreder  lips  than 
Jeremiah's  the  same  lesson,  for  the  Master  said  at  the  most  solemn  hour  of 
His  career,  "This  is  the  blood  of  the  New  Covenant,  which  is  shed  for 
many  for  the  remission  of  sins."  These  articles  of  the  New  Covenant  go 
very  deep  into  the  essence  of  Christianity,  and  may  well  be  thoughtfully 
pondered  by  us  all,  if  we  want  to  know  what  the  specific  differences 
between  the  ultimate  revelation  in  Jesus  Christ  and  all  other  systems  are. 

The  earliest  Christian  confession,  the  simplest  and  sufficient  creed,  was, 
Jesus  is  the  Christ.  What  do  we  mean  by  that  ?  We  mean  that  He  is  the 
realisation  of  the  dim  figure  which  arose,  majestic  and  enigmatical,  through 
the  mists  of  a  partial  revelation.  We  mean  that  He  is,  as  the  word  signifies 
etymologically,  "anointed"  with  the  Divine  Spirit  for  the  discharge  of  all 
the  offices  which,  in  old  days,  were  filled  by  men  who  were  fitted  and 
designated  for  them  by  outward  anointing — prophet,  priest,  and  king.  We 
mean  that  He  is  the  substance  of  which  ancient  ritual  was  the  shadow. 
We  mean  that  He  is  the  goal  to  which  all  that  former  unveihng,  in  part,  of 
the  mind  and  will  of  God  steadfastly  pointed.  This,  and  nothing  less,  is 
the  meaning  of  the  declaration  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ.  The  true  presence 
of  God,  the  true  lustrous  emanation  from,  and  manifestation  of,  the  abysmal 
brightness,  is  in  Jesus  Christ,  "  the  effulgence  of  His  glory,  and  the  express 
image  of  His  Person."  For  the  central  blaze  of  God's  glory  is  God's  love, 
and  that  rises  to  its  highest  degree  in  the  name  and  mission  of  Jesus  Christ 
our  Saviour.  If  we  would  see  God,  our  faith  must  grasp  the  Man,  the 
Christ,  the  I^ord — as  Climax  of  all  names — the  Incarnate  God,  the  Eternal 
Word  who  has  come  among  us  to  reveal  to  us  all  the  glory  of  the  Lord. 
So  let  us  make  sure  that  the  fleshly  tables  of  our  hearts  are  not  like  the 
mouldering  stones  that  antiquarians  dig  up  on  some  historical  site,  bearing 
half-obliterated  inscriptions,  with  fragmentary  names  of  mighty  kings  of 
long  ago,  but  with  the  many-syllabled  Name  written  firm,  clear,  legible, 
complete  upon  them,  as  on  some  granite  block  fresh  from  the  stone- 
cutter's chisel. 

167 


GOD'S  WRITING   ON   THE   HEART. 

I  will  put  My  law  in  their  inward  partSy  and  in  their  heart  will  I  write 
tt, — Jer.  XX xi.  ^2>' 

J  will  /  ut  My  laws  into  their  mind,  and  on  their  heart  also  will  I  write 
them, — Heb.  viii.   lo. 

J  ,g  It  seems  to  me  that  the  two  clauses  in  each  of  these  passages  are 
not  precisely  parallel,  but  parallel  with  a  difference.  I  take  it 
that  **mind"  here  means  very  much  what  we  make  it  mean  in  our  popular 
phraseology — a  kind  of  synonym  for  the  understanding,  or  the  intellectual 
part  of  a  man's  nature  ;  and  that  "  heart,"  on  the  other  hand,  means  some- 
thing a  little  wider  than  it  does  in  our  popular  phraseology,  and  indicates 
not  only  the  affections,  but  the  centre  of  personality  in  the  human  will  as 
well  as  the  seat  of  love.  So  these  two  clauses  will  mean,  you  see,  if  we 
carry  that  distinction  with  us,  two  things — the  clear  perception  of  the  will 
of  God  and  the  coincidence  of  that  will  with  our  inclinations  and  desires. 
In  men's  natural  consciences  there  is  the  law  written  on  their  minds  ;  but, 
alas  !  we  all  know  that  there  is  an  awful  chasm  between  perception  and 
inclination,  and  that  it  is  one  thing  to  know  our  duty  and  quite  another  to 
wish  to  do  it.  So  the  heart  of  this  great  promise  is  that  these  two  things 
shall  coincide  in  a  Christian  man,  shall  cover  precisely  the  same  ground,  as 
two  of  Euclid's  triangles,  v/ith  the  same  angles,  will,  if  laid  upon  each  other, 
coincide  line  for  line  and  angle  for  angle.  Thus  it  is  possible — and,  if  we 
observe  the  conditions,  it  shall  be  actual  in  us — that  knowledge  and  will 
shall  cover  absolutely  and  exactly  the  same  ground.  Inchnation  shall  be 
duty,  and  duty  shall  be  inchnation  and  delight. 

And  how  is  that  wonderful  change  upon  men  to  be  accomplished?  "/ 
will  put,  /  will  write."  Only  He  can  do  it.  We  all  know,  by  our  own 
experience,  the  schism  that  gapes  between  the  two  things.  Every  man  in 
the  world  knows  a  vast  deal  more  of  duty  than  any  man  in  the  world  does. 
The  worst  of  us  has  a  standard  that  rebukes  his  evil,  and  the  best  of  us  has 
a  standard  that  transcends  his  goodness,  and,  alas  !  often  transcends  his 
inclination.  But  the  Gospel  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  comes  armed  with 
sufficient  power  to  make  this  miracle  an  actuality  for  us  all ;  for  it  comes 
to  substitute  for  all  other  motives  to  obedience  the  one  motive  of  love. 
They  but  half  understand  the  Gospel  who  dwell  upon  its  sanctions  of  reward 
and  punishment,  and  would  seek  to  frighten  men  into  goodness  ;  and  they 
misinterpret  it  almost  as  much  who  fin(.i  the  chief  motive  for  Christian  obedi- 
ence in  the  glories  of  the  heavenly  state.  The  Gospel  appeals  to  men,  not 
merely  nor  chiefly  on  the  ground  of  self-interest,  but  it  comes  to  them  with 
one  appeal,  "  If  yc  love  Me,  keep  My  commandnients."  That  is  how  the 
law  is  written  on  the  heart.  Wherever  there  is  love,  there  is  a  supreme 
delight  in  divining  and  in  satisfying  the  wish  and  will  of  the  Beloved.  His 
lightest  word  is  law  to  the  loving  heart ;  His  looks  are  spells  and  command- 
ments. And  if  it  is  so  in  regard  of  our  poor,  imperfect  human  loves,  how 
infinitely  more  so  is  it  where  the  heart  is  touched  by  true  affection  for  His 
own  infinite  love's  sake,  of  that  "Jesus"  who  is  "most  desired"  !  The 
secret  of  Christian  morality  is  that  duty  is  changed  into  choice,  because 
love  is  made  the  motive  for  obedience. 

l68 


DELIGHT  IN  GOD'S  WILL. 

/  delight  to  do  Thy  will,  O  my  God:  yea,  Thy  law  is  within  my  heart. — 
Psalm  xl.  8. 

To  have  Christ  shrined  in  the  heart  is  the  heart  of  Christianity, 
""®  ■  and  Christ  Himself  is  our  law.  So,  in  another  sense  than  that 
which  I  have  been  already  touching,  the  law  is  written  on  the  heart  on 
which,  by  faith  and  self-surrender,  the  name  of  Christ  is  written.  And 
when  it  becomes  our  whole  duty  to  become  like  Him,  then  He,  being  rhroned 
in  our  hearts,  our  law  is  within,  and. Himself  to  His  "  darlings  "  shall  be,  as 
the  poet  has  it  about  another  matter,  "  both  law  and  impulse.'"'  Write  His 
name  upon  your  hearis,  and  your  law  of  life  is  thereby  written  there.  The 
very  specific  gift  of  Christianity  to  men  is  the  gift  of  a  new  nature,  which 
is  "  created  in  righteousness  and  holiness  that  flows  from  truth."  The 
communication  of  a  Divine  life  kindred  with,  and  percipient  of,  and 
submissive  to,  the  Divine  will,  is  the  gift  that  Christianity — or,  rather,  let 
us  put  away  the  abstraction  and  say  that  Christ — oflers  to  us  all,  and  gives 
to  every  man  who  will  accept  it.  And  thus,  and  in  other  ways  on  which 
I  cannot  dwell  now,  this  great  article  of  the  New  Covenant  lies  at  the 
very  foundation  of  the  Christian  life,  and  gives  its  peculiar  tinge  and  cast 
to  all  Christian  morality,  commandment,  and  obhgation. 

But  let  me  remind  you  how  this  great  truth  has  to  be  held  with  caution. 
The  evidence  of  this  letter  (Hebrews)  itself  shows  that,  whilst  the  writer  re- 
garded it  as  a  distinctive  characteristic  of  the  Gospel,  that  by  it  men's  wills 
were  stamped  with  a  delight  in  the  law  of  God,  and  a  transcript  thereof,  he 
still  regarded  these  wills  as  unstable,  as  capable  of  losing  the  sharp  lettering, 
of  havh^g  the  writing  of  God  obliterated,  and  still  regarded  it  as  possible 
that  there  should  be  apostasy  and  departure.  So  there  is  nothing  in  God's 
promise  which  suspends  the  need  for  effort  and  for  conflict.  Still  "  the 
flesh  lusteth  against  the  spirit."  Still  there  are  parts  of  the  nature  on 
which  that  law  is  not  written.  It  is  the  final  triumph,  that  the  whole  man, 
body,  soul,  and  spirit,  is,  through  and  through,  penetrated  with  and 
joyfully  obedient  to  the  commandments  cf  the  Lord.  There  is  need,  too, 
not  only  for  continuous  progress,  effort,  conflict,  in  order  to  keep  our  hearts 
open  for  His  handwriting,  but  also  for  much  caution,  lest  at  any  time  we 
should  mistake  our  own  self-will  for  the  utterance  of  the  Divine  voice. 
"  Love,  and  do  what  thou  wilt,"  said  a  great  Christian  teacher.  It  is  an 
unguarded  statement  ;  but,  profoundly  true  as  in  some  respects  it  is,  it  is 
only  absolutely  true  if  we  have  made  sure  that  the  "thou"  that  "wills" 
is  the  heart  on  which  God  has  written  His  law. 

Only  God  can  do  this  for  us.  One  Man  has  transcribed  the  Divine  will 
on  His  will  without  blurring  a  letter  or  omitting  a  clause.  One  Man  has 
been  able  to  say,  in  the  presence  of  the  most  fearful  temptations,  "Not 
My  will,  but  Thine,  be  done."  One  Man  has  so  completely  written, 
perceived,  and  obeyed  the  law  of  His  Father,  that,  looking  back  on  all 
His  life.  He  was  conscious  of  no  defect  or  divergence,  either  in  motive  or 
in  act,  and  could  affirm  on  the  Cross,  "It  is  finished."  He  who  thus 
perfectly  kept  that  Divine  law  will  give  to  us,  if  we  ask  Him,  His  Spirit, 
to  write  it  upon  our  hearts,  and  "the  law  of  the  spirit  of  hfe  which  was 
in  Christ  Jesus  shall  make  us  free  from  the  law  of  sin  and  death." 

169 


THE    IMPASSABLE    GULF    BETWEEN    CHRISTIANITY    AND 
OTHER   RELIGIOUS   SYSTEMS. 

Their  rock  is  not  as  our  Rock,  even  our  enemies  themselves  being  judges. 
Deut.  xxxii.  31. 

Christianity  is  a  new  covenant,  undoubtedly,  an  altogether 
'  new  thing  in  the  world.  For  whatever  other  laws  have  been 
promulgated  among  men  have  had  this  in  common,  that  they  have  stood 
over  against  the  will  with  a  whip  in  one  hand  and  a  box  of  sweets  in  the 
other,  and  have  tried  to  influence  desires  and  inclinations,  first  by  the 
setting  forth  of  duty,  then  by  threatening,  and  then  by  promises  to  obedience. 
There  is  the  inherent  weakness  of  all,  which  is  merely  law.  You  do  not 
make  men  good  by  telling  them  what  goodness  consists  in,  nor  yet  by 
setting  forth  the  bitter  consequences  that  may  result  from  wrong-doing. 
All  that  is  surface  work.  But  here  is  a  system  that  says  that  it  deals  with 
the  will  as  from  within,  and  moves  and  moulds  and  revolutionises  it. 
"You  cannot  make  men  sober  by  Act  of  Parliament,"  people  say.  Well ! 
I  do  not  believe  the  conclusion  which  is  generally  drawn  from  that  state- 
ment, but  it  is  perfectly  true  in  itself.  To  tell  a  man  what  he  ought  to  do 
is  very,  very  little  help  towards  his  doing  it.  I  do  not  under-estimate  the 
value  of  a  clear  perception  of  duty,  but  I  say  that,  apart  from  Christianity, 
in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred,  that  clear  perception  of  duty  is  like 
a  clear  opening  of  a  great  gulf  between  a  man  and  safety,  which  only  makes 
him  recoil  in  despair  with  the  thought,  "How  can  I  ever  leap  across  and 
clear  thal?^*  But  the  pecuharity  of  the  Gospel  is  that  it  gives  both  the 
knowledge  of  what  we  ought  to  be,  and  with  and  in  the  knowledge  the 
desire,  and  with  and  in  the  knowledge  and  the  desire  the  power  to  be  what 
God  would  have  us  to  be. 

All  other  systems,  whether  the  laws  of  a  nation,  or  the  principles  of  a 
scientific  morahty,  or  the  solemn  voice  that  speaks  in  our  minds  proclaim- 
ing some  version  of  God's  law  to  every  man, — all  these  are  comparatively 
impotent.  They  are  like  bill-stickers  going  about  a  rebellious  province 
posting  the  king's  proclamation — unless  they  have  soldiers  at  their  back, 
the  proclamation  is  not  worth  the  paper  it  is  printed  upon.  But  Christianity 
comes,  and  gives  us  that  which  it  requires  from  us.  So,  in  his  epigrammatic 
way.  Saint  Augustine  penetrated  to  the  very  heart  of  this  truth  when  he 
prayed,  "Give  what  Thou  commandest,  and  command  what  Thou  wilt." 

170 


THE  FREEDOM  AND   BLESSEDNESS   OF  CHRIST'S 

SERVICE. 

This  is  the  love  ofGod^  that  ive  keep  His  commandtnents  :  and  His  cotn- 
ntandtnents  are  not  grievous. — I  John  v.  3. 

Not  to  do  wrong  may  be  the  mark  of  a  slave's  timid  obedience. 
Not  to  wish  to  do  wrong  is  the  charter  of  a  son's  free  and  blessed 
service.  There  is  a  higher  possibility  yet,  reserved  for  Heaven — not  to  be 
able  to  do  wrong.  Freedom  does  not  consist  in  doing  what  I  like,— that 
turns  out,  in  the  long  run,  to  be  the  most  abject  slavery,  under  the  severest 
tyrants, — but  it  consists  in  liking  to  do  what  I  ought.  When  my  wishes 
and  God's  will  are  absolutely  coincident,  then,  and  only  then,  am  I  free. 
That  is  no  prison,  out  of  which  we  do  not  wish  to  go.  Not  to  be  confined 
against  our  wills,  but  voluntarily  to  elect  to  move  only  within  the  sacred, 
charmed,  sweet  circle  of  the  discerned  will  of  God,  is  the  service  and 
liberty  of  the  sons  of  God. 

Alas  !  there  are  a  great  many  Christians,  so-called,  who  know  very 
little  about  such  blessedness.  To  many  of  us  religion  is  a  burden.  It 
consists  of  a  number  of  prohibitions  and  restrictions  and  commandments 
equally  unwelcome.  *'  Do  not  do  this,"  and  all  the  while  I  would  like  to 
do  it.  "Do  that,"  and  all  the  while  I  do  not  want  to  do  it.  "Pray, 
because  it  is  your  duty  ;  go  to  chapel,  because  you  think  it  is  God's  will ; 
give  money  that  you  would  much  rather  keep  in  your  pockets  ;  abstain  from 
certain  things  that  you  hunger  for  ;  do  other  things  that  you  do  not  a  bit 
desire  to  do,  nor  find  any  pleasure  in  doing."  That  is  the  religion  of  hosts 
of  people.  They  have  need  to  ask  themselves  whether  their  religion 
is  Christ's  religion.  Ah,  brother!  "My  yoke  is  easy  and  My  burden 
light."  Not  because  the  things  that  He  bids  and  forbids  are  less  or  lighter 
than  those  which  the  world's  morality  requires  of  its  followers,  but  because, 
so  to  speak,  the  yoke  is  padded  with  the  velvet  of  love,  and  inclination 
coincides  in  the  measure  of  our  true  religion  with  the  discerned  will  of 
God.  This  is  ever  so  far  ahead  of  the  experience  of  crowds  of  professing 
Christians.  There  are  still  great  numbers  of  professing  Christians,  and  I 
doubt  not  that  I  speak  to  some  such,  on  whose  hearts  only  a  very  few 
of  the  syllables  of  God's  will  are  written,  and  these  very  faintly  and 
blotted.  But  remember  that  the  fundamental  idea  of  a  covenant  implies 
two  people,  and  duties  and  obligations  on  the  part  ot  each.  If  God  is 
in  covenant  with  you,  you  are  in  covenant  with  God.  If  He  makes  a 
promise,  there  is  something  for  you  to  do  in  order  that  that  promise  may 
be  fulfilled  to  you. 

171 


"WHAT   WILT   THOU    HAVE   ME   TO   DO?" 

And  the  multitudes  asked  Him,  saying,  What  then  must  we  do? — 
Luke  iii.  lo. 

What  is  there  to  do  ?  First,  and  last,  and  midst,  keep  close  to 
Jesus  Christ.  In  the  meas'ure  in  which  we  keep  ourselves  in 
continual  touch  with  Him  will  His  law  be  written  upon  our  hearts.  If 
we  are  for  ever  twitching  away  the  paper  ;  if  we  are  for  ever  flinging  blots 
and  mud  upon  it,  how  can  we  expect  the  transcript  to  be  clear  and  legible  ? 
We  must  keep  still  that  God  may  write.  We  must  keep  near  Him  that  He 
may  write.  We  must  wait  habitually  in  His  presence.  When  the 
astronomer  wishes  to  get  the  image  of  some  far-off  star,  invisible  to  the  eye 
of  sense,  he  regulates  the  motion  of  his  sensitive  plate,  so  that  for  hours  it 
shall  continue  right  beneath  the  invisible  beam.  So  we  have  to  still  our 
hearts,  and  keep  their  plates — the  fleshly  tables  of  them— exposed  to  the 
heavens ;  then  the  likeness  of  God  will  be  stamped  there. 

Be  faithful  to  what  is  written  there,  which  is  the  Christian  shape  of  the 
heathen  commandment,  "Do  the  duty  that  lies  nearest  thee;  so  shall  the 
next  become  plainer."  Be  faithful  to  the  line  that  is  "  written,"  and  there 
Vv'ill  be  more  on  the  tablet  to-morrow. 

Now  this  is  a  promise  for  us  all.  Howe\'er  blotted  and  blurred  and 
defaced  by  crooked,  scrawling  letters,  like  a  child's  copybook,  with  its  first 
pothooks  and  hangers,  our  hearts  may  be,  there  is  no  need  for  any  of  us  to 
say  despairingly,  as  we  look  on  the  smeared  page,  "  What  I  have  written  I 
have  written."  He  is  able  to  blot  it  all  out,  to  "  take  away  the  hand- 
writing"— our  own — "  that  is  against  us,  naiUng  it  to  His  Cross,"  and  to 
give  us,  in  our  inmost  spirits,  a  better  knowledge  of,  and  a  glad  obedience 
to,  His  discerned  and  holy  will.  So  that  each  of  us,  if  we  hke,  and  will 
observe  the  conditions,  may  be  able  to  say  with  all  humility,  "  Lo  !  I  come, 
in  the  volume  of  the  book  it  is  written  of  tne.  I  delight  to  do  Thy  will. 
Yea  !  Thy  law  is  within  my  heart." 

Two  mirrors  set  one  against  each  other  reflect  one  another,  and  them- 
selves in  each  other,  in  long  perspective.  Two  hearts  that  love,  with 
similar  reciprocation  of  influence,  mirror  back  to  each  other  their  own 
affections.  "  I  am  thine  ;  thou  art  mine,"  is  the  very  mother-tongue  of 
love,  and  of  blessedness  the  source.  All  loving  hearts  know  that.  This 
mutual  surrender,  and,  in  surrender,  reciprocal  possession,  is  lifted  up  here 
into  the  highest  regions.     "  I  will  be  their  God,  they  shall  be  My  people." 

172 


REPENTANCE   AND   FAITH. 

Repentance  toward  God,  and  faith  toward  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. — 
Acts  xx.  21. 

J  2j  Very  near  the  close  of  his  missionary  career  the  Apostle  Paul 
summed  up  his  preaching  as  being  all  directed  to  two  points, 
"  Repentance  towards  God,  and  faith  in  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  These 
two,  repentance  and  faith,  ought  never  to  be  separated  in  thought,  as  they 
are  inseparable  in  fact.  Genuine  repentance  is  impossible  without  faith  ; 
true  faith  cannot  exist  without  repentance. 

And  yet  the  two  are  separated  very  often,  in  this  day  especially,  even  by 
earnest  Christian  teachers  who  have  a  great  deal  to  say  about  faith,  and 
not  nearly  enough  in  proportion  about  repentance  ;  and  the  effect  is  to 
obscure  the  very  idea  of  faith,  and  not  seldom  to  preach,  "  Peace  !  peace  ! 
where  there  is  no  peace."  A  Gospel  which  is  always  talking  about  faith, 
and  scarcely  ever  talking  about  repentance,  is  denuded  indeed  of  some  of 
its  most  unwelcome  characteristics,  but  is  also  deprived  of  most  of  its  power, 
and  it  may  very  easily  become  an  ally  of  all  righteousness  and  an  indulgence 
to  sin. 

Some  of  the  most  formidable  objections  to  the  Christian  doctrine  of 
forgiveness — viz.,  that  it  is  immoral  in  its  substance — arise  chiefly  from 
forgetting  that  "repentance"  towards  "God"  is  as  real  a  condition  of 
salvation  as  is  "faith  in  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  We  have  here  the 
Apostle's  deliverance  about  one  of  these  twin  thoughts.  We  have  three 
stages — the  root,  the  stem,  the  fruit ;  sorrow,  repentance,  salvation.  But 
there  is  a  right  and  a  wrong  kind  of  sorrow  for  sin.  The  right  kind  breeds 
repentance,  and  thence  reaches  salvation  ;  the  wrong  kind  breeds  nothing, 
and  so  ends  in  death.  Look  at  this  ladder,  which  the  Apostle  sets  up 
"from  the  horrible  pit  and  the  miry  clay"  of  evil,  up  to  the  sunny  heights 
of  salvation,  and  trace  its  stages  ;  not  forgetting  that  it  is  not  a  complete 
statement  of  the  case,  and  needs  to  be  supplemented,  in  the  spirit  of  the 
words  already  quoted,  by  the  other  part  of  the  inseparable  whole,  "faith 
towards  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

It  would  be  an  interesting  study  to  examine  the  two  letters  of  the 
Apostle  Peter,  in  order  to  construct  from  them  a  picture  of  what  he  became, 
and  to  contrast  it  with  his  own  earlier  self,  when  full  of  self-confidence, 
rashness,  and  instability.  It  took  a  lifetime  for  Simon,  the  son  of  Jonas,  to 
grow  into  Peter ;  but  it  was  done.  And  the  very  faults  of  the  character 
became  strength.  What  he  had  proved  possible  in  his  own  case  he 
commands  and  commends  to  us  ;  and  from  the  height  to  which  he  has 
reached  he  looks  upwards  to  the  infinite  ascent  which  he  knows  he  will 
attain  when  he  puts  off  this  tabernacle,  and  then  downwards  to  his 
brethren,  bidding  them,  too,  climb  and  aspire.  His  last  word  is  like  that 
of  the  great  Roman  Catholic  apostle  to  the  East  Indies:  "Forward!" 
He  is  like  some  trumpeter  on  the  battlefield  who  spends  his  last  breath  in 
sounding  an  advance.  Immortal  hope  animates  his  dying  injunction  : 
"  Grow  !  grow  in  grace,  and  in  the  knowledge  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour." 

173 


THE  BEGGAR'S   PETITION. 

^nd  when  he  heard  that  it  ztas  Jesus  of  Nazareth^  he  began  to  cry  out 
and  say  y  Jesus,  Thou  Son  of  David,  have  mercy  on  me. — MARK  x.  47. 

Jesus  was  now  on  His  last  journey  to  Jerusalem.  That  night 
'"^^  ""  He  would  sleep  at  Bethany  :  Calvary  was  but  a  week  off.  He 
had  paused  to  save  Zacchoeus,  and  now  He  has  resumed  His  march  to  His 
Cross.  Popular  enthusiasm  is  surging  round  Him,  and  for  the  first  time  He 
does  not  try  to  repress  it.  A  shouting  multitude  are  escorting  Him  out  of 
the  city.  They  have  just  passed  the  gates,  and  are  in  the  act  of  turning 
towards  the  mountain  gorge  through  which  ran  the  Jerusalem  road.  A  long 
file  of  beggars  is  sitting,  as  beggars  do  still  in  Eastern  cities,  outside  the 
gate  ;  well  accustomed  to  lift  their  monotonous  wail  at  the  sound  of  passing 
footsteps.  Bartimseus  is  amongst  them.  He  asks,  according  to  Luke, 
what  is  the  cause  of  the  bustle,  and  is  told  that  "Jesus  of  Nazareth  is 
passing  by."  The  name  wakes  strange  hopes  in  him,  which  can  only  be 
accounted  for  by  his  knowledge  of  Christ's  miracles  done  elsewhere.  It  is 
a  witness  to  their  notoriety  that  they  had  filtered  down  to  the  talk  of  beggars 
at  city  gates.  And  so,  true  to  his  trade,  he  cries,  "Jesus,  .  .  .  have  mercy 
upon  me  ! "  In  the  cry  there  throbs  the  sense  of  need,  deep  and  urgent ; 
in  it  there  is  also  the  realisation  of  the  possibility  tliat  the  widely  flowing 
blessings  of  which  Bartinueus  had  heard  might  be  concentrated  and  poured, 
in  their  full  flood,  upon  himself.  He  individualises  himself,  his  need, 
Christ's  power  and  willingness  to  help  him.  And,  because  he  has  heard 
of  so  many  who  have,  in  like  manner,  received  His  healing  touch,  he  comes 
with  the  cry,  "  Have  mercy  upon  ;;/^." 

All  this  is  upon  the  low  level  of  physical  blessings,  need,  and  desire. 
But  let  us  lift  it  higher.  It  is  a  mirror  in  which  we  may  see  ourselves,  our 
necessities,  and  the  example  of  what  our  desire  ought  to  be.  Ah,  Ijrother  ! 
the  deep  consciousness  of  impotence,  need,  emptiness,  bhndness,  lies  at  the 
bottom  of  all  true  crying  to  Jesus  Christ.  If  you  have  never — knowing 
yourself  to  be  a  sinful  man,  in  peril,  present  and  future,  from  your  sin,  and 
stained  and  marred  by  reason  of  it — gone  to  Jesus  Christ,  you  never  have 
gone  to  Him  in  any  deep  and  adequate  sense  at  all.  Only  when  I  know 
myself  to  be  a  sinful  man  am  I  driven  to  cry,  "Jesus  !  have  mercy  on  me." 
And  I  ask  you  not  to  answer  it  to  me,  but  to  press  the  question  on  your 
own  consciences — "  Have  I  any  experience  of  such  a  sense  of  need  ;  or  am 
I  groping  in  the  darkness  and  saying,  I  see  ;  weak  as  water,  and  saying  I 
am  strong?"  "Thou  knowest  not  that  thou  art  poor,  and  naked,  and 
blind "  ;  and  so  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  should  be  passing  by  has  never 
moved  thy  tongue  to  call,  "  Son  of  David  !  have  mercy  upon  me." 

174 


THE  SON  OF  DAVID. 

Whai  think  ye  of  Christ  ?     Whose  Son  is  He  ?     They  say  unto  him, 
The  Son  of  David, — r^lATT.  xxii.  42. 

The  cry  of  blind  Bartimoeus  expressed  a  clear  insight  into 
something  at  least  of  our  Lord's  unique  character  and  power. 
Unless  we  know  Him  to  be  all  that  is  involved  in  that  august  title,  "the 
Son  of  David,"  I  do  not  think  our  cries  to  Him  will  ever  be  very  earnest. 
It  seems  to  me  that  they  will  only  be  earnest  when,  on  the  one  hand,  we 
recognise  our  need  of  a  Saviour,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  behold  in  Him 
the  Saviour  that  we  need.  I  can  quite  understand — and  ever  see  plenty  of 
illustrations  of  it  all  round  about  us — a  kind  of  Christianity,  real  as  far  as 
it  goes,  but  in  my  judgment  very  superficial,  which  has  no  adequate  con- 
ception of  what  sin  means,  in  its  depth,  in  its  power  upon  the  subject  of  it, 
or  in  its  consequences  here  and  hereafter  ;  and,  that  sense  being  lacking, 
the  whole  scale  of  Christianit}',  as  it  were,  is  dropped,  and  Christ  comes 
to  be,  not,  as  I  think,  the  New  Testament  tells  us  He  is,  the  Incarnate 
Word  of  God,  who  for  us  men  and  for  our  salvation  bore  our  sins  in  His 
own  body  on  the  tree,  and  was  made  sin  for  us,  that  we  might  be  made 
the  righteousness  of  God  in  Him,  but  an  Example,  a  Teacher,  or  a  pure 
Model,  or  a  Social  Reformer,  or  the  like.  If  men  think  of  Him  only  as 
such,  they  will  never  cry  to  Him,  "  Have  mercy  upon  me." 

Oh  !  I  pray  you,  whether  you  begin  with  looking  into  your  own  hearts 
and  recognising  the  crawling  evils  that  have  made  their  home  there,  and 
thence  pass  to  the  thought  of  the  sort  of  Redeemer  that  you  need  and  find 
in  Christ — or  whether  you  begin  at  the  other  side,  and  looking  upon  the 
revealed  Christ  in  all  the  fulness  in  which  He  is  represented  to  us  in  the 
Gospels,  and  from  thence  go  back  to  ask  yourselves  the  question,  "What 
sort  of  man  must  I  be  if  that  is  the  kind  of  Saviour  that  I  need  ?" — I  pray 
you  ever  to  blend  these  two  things  together,  the  consciousness  of  your  own 
need  of  redemption  in  His  blood,  and  the  assurance  that  by  His  death 
we  are  redeemed,  and  then  to  cry,  "  Lord  !  have  mercy  upon  me,"  and 
claim  your  individual  share  in  the  wide-flowing  blessing,  to  turn  all  the 
generalities  of  His  grace  into  the  particularities  of  your  own  possession. 
We  have  to  go  one  by  one  to  His  Cross,  and  one  by  one  to  pass  through 
the  wicket-gate.  We  have  not  cried  to  Him  as  we  ought  if  our  cry  is  only, 
"Christ !  have  mercy  upon  us.  Lord  !  have  mercy  upon  us.  Christ !  have 
mercy  upon  us."  We  must  be  alone  with  Him,  that  into  our  own  hearts  we 
may  receive  all  the  fulness  of  His  blessing ;  and  our  petition  must  be, 
**  Thou  Son  of  David  !  have  mercy  upon  me."     Have  you  said  that  ? 

175 


JESUS  AND  THE  BLIND  MAN. 

"  The  son  of  Timcetis,  Bartiiiicvits,  a  blind  beggar,  was  sitting  by  the 
way  side. — Mark  x.  46. 

The  blind  befT<jar  had  a  clear  insight  into  Christ's  place  and 
dignity.  The  multitude  said  to  him,  "Jesus  of  A'azarcth 
pnsseth  by."  That  was  all  they  cared  for  or  knew.  He  cries,  "Jesus, 
Thou  Son  of  David,^'  distinctly  recognising  our  Lord's  Mesiianic  character, 
His  power  and  authority,  and  on  that  power  and  authority  he  built  a  con- 
fidence ;  for  he  says  not  as  some  other  suppliants  had  done,  either,  "  If 
Thou  wilt  Thou  canst,"  or,  "  If  Thou  canst  do  anything,  have  compassion 
on  us  "  ;  he  is  sure  of  both  the  power  and  the  will. 

Now,  it  is  interesting  to  notice  that  this  same  clear  insight  other  blind 
men  in  the  Evangelist's  story  are  also  represented  as  having  had.  Blindness 
has  its  compensations ;  it  leads  to  a  certain  steadfast  brooding  upon 
thoughts,  free  from  disturbing  influences.  Seeing  ]es\\s  did  not  work  faith  ; 
not  seeing  Him  seems  to  have  helped  it.  It  left  imagination  to  work 
undisturbed,  and  He  was  all  the  loftier  to  these  men  because  the  conceptions 
of  their  minds  were  not  limited  by  the  vision  of  their  eyes.  At  all  events, 
here  is  a  distinct  piece  cf  insight  into  Christ's  dignity,  power,  and  will  to 
which  the  seeing  multitudes  were  blind. 

The  disciples  attempted  to  stifle  the  cry.  No  doubt  it  was  in  defence  of 
the  Master's  dignity,  as  they  construed  it,  that  the  people  sought  to  silence 
the  persistent,  strident  voice  piercing  through  their  hosannas.  Ah  !  they 
did  not  know  that  the  cry  of  wretchedness  was  far  sweeter  to  Him  than  their 
shallow  hallelujahs.  Christian  people  of  all  churches,  and  some  stiffened 
churches  very  especially,  have  been  a  great  deal  more  careful  of  Christ's 
dignity  than  He  is,  and  have  felt  that  their  formal  worship  was  indecorously 
disturbed  when  by  chance  some  earnest  voice  forced  its  way  through  it 
with  the  cry  of  need  and  desire.  But  this  man  had  been  accustomed  for 
many  a  day,  sitting  outside  the  gate,  to  reiterate  his  petition  when  it  was 
unattended  to,  and  to  make  it  heard  amidst  the  noise  of  passers-by.  So 
he  was  persistently  bold  and  importunate  and  shameless,  as  the  shallow 
critics  thought,  in  his  crying.  The  more  they  silenced  him  the  more  a 
great  deal  he  cried.  Would  (jod  tliat  we  had  more  crying  like  that  ;  and 
that  Christ's  servants  did  not  so  often  seek  to  suppress  it,  as  some  of  them 
do.  If  there  are  any  of  you  who,  by  reason  of  companions,  or  cares,  or 
habits,  or  sorrows,  or  a  feeble  conception  of  your  own  need,  or  a  doubtful 
recognition  of  Christ's  power  and  mercy,  have  been  tempted  to  stop  your 
supplications,  do  like  Bartimceus,  and  the  more  these,  your  enemies,  seek 
to  silence  the  deepest  voice  that  is  in  you,  the  more  let  it  speak. 

176 


THE    MASTER'S    CALL. 

The  Master  is  here,  and  calleth  thee. — John  xi.  28. 

**  He  stood  still,  and  commanded  him  to  be  called  "  Remember 
June  .  jj^^j^  pj^  ^^g  ^^  jjig  X02A  to  His  Cross,  and  the  tension  of  spirit 
which  the  Evangelists  notice  as  attaching  to  Him  then,  and  which  filled  the 
disciples  with  awe  as  they  followed  Him,  absorbed  Him,  no  doubt,  at  this 
hour,  so  that  He  heard  little  of  the  people's  shouts.  But  He  did  hear  the 
blind  beggar's  cry,  and  He  arrested  His  march  in  order  to  attend  to  it.  That 
pause  of  the  King,  and  the  quick  ear  which  discerned  the  difference  between 
the  unreal  shouts  of  the  crowd  and  the  terrible  sincerity  in  the  cry  of  the 
beggar  is  still  open.  He  is  in  the  heavens,  surrounded  by  its  glories,  and, 
as  I  think  Scripture  teaches  us,  wielding  providence  and  administering  the 
affairs  of  the  universe.  He  does  not  need  to  pause  in  order  to  hear  you  and 
me.  If  He  did.  He  would — if  I  may  venture  upon  such  an  impossible  sup- 
position— bid  the  hallelujahs  of  heaven  hush  themselves,  and  suspend  the 
operations  of  His  providence  if  needs  were,  rather  than  you  or  I,  or  any  poor 
man  who  cries  to  Him,  should  be  unheard  and  unhelped.  The  living  Christ 
is  as  tender  a  friend,  has  as  quick  an  ear,  is  as  ready  to  help  at  once,  to-day, 
as  He  was  outside  the  gate  of  Jericho.  And  every  one  of  us  may  lift  his  or 
her  poor,  thin  voice,  and  it  will  go  straight  up  to  the  throne,  and  not  be  lost 
in  the  clamour  of  the  hallelujahs  that  echo  round  His  seat.  Christ  still 
hears  and  answers  the  cry  of  need.  Send  you  it  up,  and  you  will  find  that 
true.  Notice  the  suppliant's  response.  That  is  a  very  characteristic  right- 
about-face of  the  crowd,  who  one  moment  were  saying,  "  Hold  your  tongue, 
and  do  not  disturb  Him,"  and  the  next  moment  were  all  eager  to  encumber 
him  with  help,  and  to  say,  *'  Rise  up!  be  of  good  cheer  !  He  calleth  thee." 
No  thanks  to  them  that  He  did.  And  what  did  the  man  do?  "Sprang 
to  his  feet " — as  the  words  rightly  rendered  would  be — and  flung  away  the 
frowsy  rags  that  he  had  round  himself  for  warmth  and  softness  of  seat,  as  he 
waited  at  the  gate;  "and  he  came  to  Jesus."  Brother  !  "casting  aside 
every  weight,  and  the  sin  that  doth  so  easily  beset  us,  let  us  run''  to  the 
same  refuge.  You  have  to  abandon  something  if  you  are  to  go  to  Christ  to 
be  healed.  I  daresay  you  know  well  enough  what  it  is.  I  do  not,  but 
certainly  there  is  something  that  entangles  your  legs  and  keeps  you  from 
finding  your  way  to  Him.  And  if  there  is  nothing  else  there  is  yourself,  and 
your  trust  in  self,  and  that  is  to  be  put  away.  Cast  away  the  garment 
spotted  with  the  flesh,  and  go  to  Christ,  and  you  will  get  succour, 

177  N- 


THE  ALL-GRANTING  LOVE  OF  CHRIST. 

If  you  abide  in  Me,  and  My  words  abide  inyou^  ask  whatsoever  ye  will^ 
and  it  shall  be  done  unto  you. — John  xv.  7, 

"What  wilt  thou  that  I  should  do  unto  thee  ?  "  A  very  few  hours 
before  He  had  put  the  same  question,  with  an  entirely  different 
significance,  when  the  sons  of  Zebedee  came  to  Him,  and  tried  to  get  Him  to 
walk  blindfold  into  a  promise.  He  upset  their  scheme  with  the  simple 
question,  *'  What  is  it  that  you  want  ?  "  And  that  meant,  "  I  must  know 
and  judge  before  I  commit  Myself"  But  when  He  said  the  same  thing  to 
Bartimaeus,  He  meant  exactly  the  opposite.  It  was  putting  the  key  of  the 
treasure-house  into  the  beggar's  hand.  It  was  the  implicit  pledge  that 
whatever  he  desired  he  should  receive.  He  knew  that  the  thing  this  man 
wanted  was  the  thing  that  He  delighted  to  give. 

But  the  tenderness  of  the  words,  and  the  gracious  promise  that  is 
hived  in  them,  must  not  make  us  forget  the  singular  authority  that  speaks 
in  them.  Think  of  a  man  doing  as  Jesus  Christ  did,  standing  before  another 
and  saying,  '*  I  will  give  you  anything  that  you  want."  Either  a  madman, 
or  a  blasphemer,  or  "  God  manifest  in  the  flesh  "  ;  almighty  power  guided 
by  infinite  love  1 

And  what  said  the  man  ?  He  had  no  doubt  what  he  wanted  most :  the 
opening  of  these  blind  eyes  of  his.  And,  dear  brother,  if  we  knew  ourselves 
as  well  as  Bartimseus  knew  his  blindness,  we  should  have  as  httle  doubt 
what  it  is  that  we  need  most.  Suppose  you  had  this  wishing- cap  that 
Christ  put  on  Bartimseus's  head  put  on  yours,  what  would  you  ask  ?  It  is  a 
penetrating  question  if  men  will  answer  it  honestly.  Think  what  you  con- 
sider to  be  your  chief  need.  Suppose  Jesus  Christ  stood  where  I  stand,  and 
spoke  to  you  :  "  What  is  it  that  I  should  do  for  you  ?"  If  you  are  a  wise 
man,  if  you  know  yourself  and  Him,  your  answer  will  come  as  swiftly  as  the 
man's — '*  Lord  I  heal  me  of  my  blindness,  and  take  away  my  sin,  and  give 
me  Thy  salvation."  There  is  no  doubt  about  what  it  is  that  every  one  of  us 
needs  most.  And  there  should  be  no  doubt  as  to  what  each  of  us  would 
ask  first.  The  supposition  that  I  have  been  making  is  realised.  That 
gracious  Lord  is  here,  and  is  ready  to  give  you  the  satisfaction  of  your 
deepest  need,  if  you  know  what  it  is,  and  will  go  to  Him  for  it.  *'  Ask !  and 
ye  shall  receive." 

178 


THE  HEALER  AND  THE  HEALED. 

And  Jesus  said  unto  hintf  Go  thy  way ;  thy  faith  hath  made  thee 
whole. — Mark  x.  52. 

J       2_    Bartim^-US  had  scarcely  ended  speaking  when  Christ  began.  He 

was  blind  at  the  beginning  of  Christ's  Httle  sentence  ;  he  saw  at 

the  end  of  it.     "  Go  thy  way  ;   thy  faith  hath  saved  thee."     The  answer 

came  instantly,  and  the  cure  was  as  immediate  as  the  movement  of  Christ's 

heart  in  answer. 

I  here  and  now  proclaim  the  possibility  of  an  immediate  passage  from 
weakness  to  light.  Some  folk  look  askance  at  us  when  we  talk  about 
sudden  conversions,  but  these  are  perfectly  reasonable  ;  and  the  experience 
of  thousands  asserts  that  they  are  actual.  As  soon  as  we  desire  we  have, 
and  as  soon  as  we  have  we  see.  Whenever  the  lungs  are  open  the  air 
rushes  in  ;  sometimes  the  air  opens  the  lung  that  it  may.  The  desire  is  all 
but  contemporaneous  with  the  fulfdment,  in  Christ's  dealings  with  men. 
The  message  is  flashed  along  the  wire  from  earth  to  heaven  in  an  in- 
calculably brief  space  of  time,  and  the  answer  comes  swift  as  thought 
and  swifter  than  light.  So,  dear  friend,  there  is  no  reason  whatever  why 
a  similar  instantaneous  change  should  not  pass  over  you  now.  You  are 
unsaved ;  you  may  be  saved.  It  is  for  yourself  to  settle  whether  you  are 
or  are  not. 

Here  we  have  a  clear  statement  of  the  path  by  which  Christ's  mercy 
rushes  into  a  man's  soul.  "Thy  faith  hath  saved  thee."  But  it  was 
Christ's  power  that  saved  him.  Yes  !  it  was  ;  but  it  was  faith  that  made  it 
possible  for  Christ's  power  to  make  him  whole.  Physical  miracles  indeed 
did  not  always  require  trust  in  Christ,  as  a  preceding  condition,  but  the 
possession  of  Christ's  salvation  does,  and  cannot  but  do.  There  must  be 
trust  in  Him  in  order  that  we  may  partake  of  the  salvation  which  is  owing 
solely  to  Ilis  power,  His  love,  His  work  upon  the  Cross.  The  condition  is 
for  us  ;  the  power  comes  from  Him.  My  faith  is  the  hand  that  grasps  His. 
It  is  His  hand,  not  mine,  that  holds  me  up.  My  faith  lays  hold  of  the  rope. 
It  is  the  rope,  and  the  person  above  that  holds  it,  that  lifts  me  out  of  the 
horrible  pit  and  the  miry  clay.  My  faith  flees  for  refuge  to  the  City.  It 
is  the  City  that  keeps  me  safe  from  the  Avenger  of  Blood.  Brother  ! 
exercise  that  faith,  and  you  will  find  that  vision.  If  you  will  fling  away 
your  hindrances,  and  grope  your  path  to  His  feet,  and  fall  down  before  Him, 
knowing  your  deep  necessity,  and  trusting  to  Him  to  supply  it.  He  will  save 
you.  Your  new  sight  will  gaze  upon  your  Redeemer,  and  you  will  follow 
Him  in  the  way  of  loving  trust  and  glad  obedience. 

Jesus  Christ  was  passing  by.  He  was  never  to  be  in  Jericho  any  more. 
If  Bartimaeus  did  not  get  his  sight  then,  he  would  be  bhnd  all  his  days. 
Christ  and  His  salvation  are  oflered  to  thee,  my  friend,  now.  Perhaps  if 
you  let  Him  pass  you  will  never  hear  Him  call  again,  and  may  abide  in  the 
darkness  for  ever.     Do  not  run  the  risk  of  such  a  fate. 

179 


KNOWING   GOD. 

Thou  shalt  know  that  I  the  Lord  am  thy  Saviour,  and  thy  Redeemer, 
the  Mighty  One  of  Jacob. — ISA.  Ix.  i6. 

We  all  know  the  difference  between  hearsay  and  sight.     We 
June  23. 

may  have  read  books  of  travel  that  tell  of  some  scene  of  great 

natural  beauty  or  historic  interest,  and  may  think  that  we  understand  all  about 

it,  but  it  is  always  an  epoch  when  our  own  eyes  look  for  the  first  time  at 

the  snowy  summit  of  an  Alp,  or  for  the  first  time  at  the  Parthenon  on  its 

rocky  height.     We  all  know  the  difference  between  hearsay  and  experience. 

W^e  read  books  of  the  poets  that  pourtray  love  and  sorrow,  and  the  other 

emotions  that  make  up  our  throbbing,  changeful  Hfe  ;  but  we  need  to  go 

through  the  mill  ourselves  before  we  understand  what  the  grip  of  the  iron 

teeth  of  the  harrow  of  affliction  is  ;  and  we  need  to  have  had  our  own  hearts 

dilated  by  a  true  and  blessed  affection  before  we  know  the  sweetness  of 

love.     Men  may  tell  us  about  it,  but  we  have  to  feel  it  ourselves  before  we 

know. 

To  come  still  closer  :  we  all  know  the  dift'erence  between  hearing  about 
a  man  and  making  his  acquaintance.  We  may  have  been  told  much  about 
him,  and  be  familiar  with  his  character,  as  we  think  ;  but,  when  we  come 
face  to  face  with  him,  and  actually  for  ourselves  experience  the  magnetism 
of  his  presence,  or  come  under  any  of  the  influences  of  his  character,  then 
we  know  that  our  former  acquaintance  with  him,  by  means  of  hearsay,  was 
but  superficial  and  shadowy.  "  I  have  heard  of  Thee  by  the  hearing  of  the 
ear,  but  now  mine  eyes  see  Thee."  Can  you  say  that?  If  so,  you  under- 
stand the  text.  "They  shall  no  more  teach  every  man  .  .  .  his  brother, 
saying,  Know  the  Lord,  and  make  acquaintance  with  Him  " — as  if  He 
were  a  stranger — for  "  all  shall  know  Me,  from  the  least  to  the  greatest." 

There  is  all  the  difference  between  knowing  about  God  and  knowing 
God  ;  just  the  difference  that  there  is  between  dogma  and  life,  between 
theology  and  religion.  We  may  have  all  the  articles  of  the  Christian  creed 
clear  in  our  understandings,  and  may  owe  our  possession  of  them  to  other 
people's  teaching;  we  may  even,  in  a  sense,  believe  them,  — and  yet  they 
may  be  absolutely  outside  of  our  lives.  And  it  is  only  when  they  pass  into 
the  very  substance  of  our  being,  and  influence  the  springs  of  our  conduct — 
it  is  only  then  that  we  know  God. 

i£o 


ACQUAINTANCE  WITH   GOD. 

Acquaint  now  thyself  with  Him,  and  be  at  peace :  thereby  good  shall 
cotne  unto  thee. — Job  xxii.  21. 

Acquaintance  with  God  may  not  include  any  more  intellectual 
June  29t  .  .         ,  __.  , 

proposition  about  Him  than  the  man  had  before  he  knew  Him, 

but  it  has  turned  doctrines  into  fact,  and  instead  of  the  mere  hearsay  and 
traditional  religion,  which  is  the  only  religion  of  millions,  it  has  brought 
the  true  heart-grasp  of  Him,  which  is  the  only  thing  worth  calHng  a  know- 
ledge of  God.  For  let  me  remind  you  that  whilst  we  may  know  a  science 
or  proposition  by  the  exercise  of  our  understandings  in  appropriate  ways, 
that  is  not  how  we  know  people.  And  God  is  a  Person,  and  to  know 
Him  does  not  mean  to  understand  abozit  Him,  but  to  be  on  speaking  terms 
with  Him,  to  have  a  familiar  acquaintance  with  Him,  to  "summer  and 
winter "  with  Him,  and  so,  by  experience,  to  verify  the  things  that  before 
were  mere  doctrines.  I  want  you  to  ask  yourself,  and  I  would  ask 
myself,  whether  my  religion  is  knowing  about  God  or  knowing  Him  ; 
whether  it  is  all  made  up  of  a  set  of  truths  which  I  assent  to  mainly 
because  I  am  not  sufficiently  interested  in  them  to  contradict  them,  or 
whether  these  truths  have  become  the  very  substance  of  my  life.  I  do  not 
believe  in  a  religion  without  a  dogma — I  was  going  to  say,  I  believe  still 
less  in  a  dogma  without  religion  ;  and  that  is  the  Christianity  of  hosts  of 
professing  Christians.  It  is  as  useless  as  are  the  dried  seeds  that  rattle 
in  the  withered  head  of  a  poppy  in  the  autumn,  or  as  the  shrivelled  kernel 
that  sounds  in  the  hollowness  of  a  half-empty  nut. 

Remember  that  to  know  God  is  to  become  acquainted  with  Him,  and 
that  only  on  the  path  of  such  familiar,  friendly,  loving  intercourse  and  com- 
munion with  Him  can  men  find  the  confirmation  of  the  truths  about  Him 
which  make  up  the  eternal  revelation  of  Him  in  the  Gospel.  **  We  know  " 
— that  is  a  valid  certainty,  arising  from  experience,  and  it  has  as  good  a 
right  to  call  itself  knowledge  as  any  of  the  processes  by  which  men  come 
to  be  sure  about  the  physical  facts  of  this  material  universe.  Nay  !  I  would 
even  go  further,  and  say  that  the  fact  that  such  a  continual  stream  of  wit- 
nesses, through  all  the  generations,  have  been  able  to  say,  "  I  have  tasted  and 
I  have  seen  that  God  is  good,"  is  to  be  taken  into  account  by  all  impartial 
searchers  after  truth.  And  if  men  want  to  square  their  creeds  with  all  the 
facts  of  humanity,  let  them  not  omit,  in  their  consideration  of  the  claims 
of  Christian  evidence,  this  fact,  that  from  generation  to  generation  men 
have  said,  and  their  lives  have  witnessed  to  its  truth,  "We  know  in  whom 
we  have  believed,  and  that  He  is  able  to  keep  us."  We  know  that  we  are 
of  God.  The  whole  case  for  Christianity  cannot  be  appreciated  from  out- 
side.    "  Taste  and  see." 

i8i 


"ALL    SHALL   KNOW    ME." 

They  shall  not  teach  every  man  his  felloiv-ci'izen,  and  every  man  his 
brot'ier,  sayijig,  Know  the  Lord :  for  all  shall  knew  Me,  front  the  least  to 
the  greatest  of  them. — Keb.  viii.  ii. 

"TiiEY  all,  from  the  least  to  the  greatest,  shall  know."     There 
June  30. 

is  to  be  no  distinction  of  rank  or  age,   or  endowment,   which 

shall  result  in  some  of  the  people  of  God  having  a  position  from  which  any 
of  the  others  are  altogether  shut  out.  The  writer  is,  of  course,  contrasting 
in  his  mind,  though  he  does  not  express  the  contrast,  the  condition  of 
things  of  old,  when  the  spiritual  aristocracy  of  the  nation  received  com- 
munications which  they  then  imparted  to  their  fellows.  In  the  morning 
dawn  the  highest  summits  catch  the  rays  first,  but  as  the  sun  rises  it  floods 
the  lower  levels,  and  at  mid-day  shines  right  down  into  the  depths  of  the 
cavities.  So  the  world  is  now  flooded  with  the  light  of  Christ ;  and  every 
Christian  man  and  woman,  by  virtue  of  their  Christian  character,  does 
possess  the  unction  from  the  Holy  One,  in  which  lie  the  potency  and  the 
promise  of  the  knowledge  of  all  things  that  are  needful  to  be  known  for 
life  and  godliness.  This  is  the  true  democracy  of  the  Gospel — the  universal 
possession  of  the  life  of  Christ  by  the  Spirit. 

Now,  if  that  be  so,  then  it  is  by  no  means  a  truth  to  be  kept  simply  for 
the  purpose  of  fighting  against  ecclesiastical  or  sacerdotal  encroachm.ents 
and  denials  of  it,  but  it  ought  to  be  taken  as  the  candle  of  the  Lord,  by 
each  of  us,  and  in  the  light  of  it  we  ought  to  search  very  rigidly  and  very 
often  our  own  Christian  character  and  experiences.  Do  you  know  any- 
thing about  that  inward  knowledge  of  God  which  comes  from  friendship 
with  Him,  and  speaks  irrefragable  certainties  in  the  heart  which  receives 
it  ?  "  If  any  man  have  not  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  he  is  none  of  His."  If  you 
owe  all  your  knowledge  of,  and  your  faith  in,  the  great  verities  of  the 
Gospel,  and  the  loving  personality  of  God,  to  the  mere  report  of  others,  if 
you  cannot  verify  these  by  your  own  experience,  if  you  cannot  say,  "  Many 
things  I  know  not  ;  you  can  easily  puzzle  me  with  critical  and  philosophical 
subtleties,  but  this  one  thing  I  do  know,  that  whereas  I  was  bl  nd,  now  I 
see  " — if  you  cannot  say  that,  I  pray  you,  bethink  yourself  whether  your 
religion  is  not  mainly  a  form,  and  how  far  it  has  any  life  in  it  at  all. 

182 


INDIVIDUAL  RESPONSIBILITY. 

To  him,  therefore^  that  knoweth  to  do  goodf  and  doeth  it  notf  to  him  it  is 
sin, — James  iv.  17. 

The  recognition  of  the  universality  of  the  knowledge  of  God 
^  '  in  all  Christian  people  has  great  revolutionary  work  to  do 
amongst  the  churches  of  Christendom  yet.  For  I  do  not  know  that  there 
are  any  of  them  that  have  sufficiently  recognised  this  principle.  Not  only 
in  a  church  where  there  is  a  priesthood  and  an  infallible  head  of  the  Church 
en  earth,  nor  in  churches  only  that  are  bound  by  human  creeds  imposed  on 
them  by  men,  but  also  in  churches  like  ours,  where  there  is  no  formal 
recognition  of  either  of  these  two  errors,  the  practical  contradiction  of  this 
universahty  is  apt  to  creep  in.  It  is  a  great  deal  more  the  fault  of  the 
people  than  of  the  priest ;  a  great  deal  more  the  fault  of  the  congregation 
than  of  the  pastor,  when  they  are  lazily  contented  to  take  all  their  religion 
at  second-hand  from  him,  and  to  shuffle  all  the  responsibility  off  their  own 
shoulders  on  to  his.  If  this  truth  obliges  me,  and  all  men  who  stand  in  my 
position,  to  say  with  the  Apostle,  "Not  for  that  we  have  dominion  over 
your  faith,  but  are  helpers  of  your  joy,"  it  obliges  you  to  take  nothing  from 
me,  or  any  man,  on  our  bare  words,  nor  to  exalt  any  of  us  into  a  position 
which  would  contradict  this  great  principle,  but  yourself,  at  first  hand,  to 
go  to  God,  and  get  straight  from  Him  the  teaching  which  He  only  can  give. 
Dominion  and  subjection,  authority  and  submission  to  men,  in  any  office  in 
the  church,  are  shut  out  by  such  words  as  these. 

But  brotherly  help  is  not  shut  out.  If  a  party  of  men  are  climbing  a 
hill,  and  one  is  in  advance  of  his  fellows  when  he  reached  the  summit,  he 
may  look  down  and  call  to  those  below,  and  tell  them  how  fair  and  wide 
the  view  is,  and  beckon  them  to  come  and  give  them  a  helping  hand  up. 
So,  because  Christian  men  vary  in  the  extent  to  which  they  possess  and 
utilise  the  one  gift  of  knowledge  of  God,  and  some  of  them  are  in  advance 
of  the  others,  it  is  all  in  accordance  with  this  principle,  that  they  that 
are  in  advance  should  help  their  brethren,  and  give  them  a  brotherly 
hand.  Not  as  if  my  brother's  word  can  give  me  the  inward  knowledge  of 
God,  but  it  may  help  me  to  get  that  knowledge  for  myself.  We  can  but 
do  what  the  friend  of  the  bridegroom  does  :  he  brings  the  bride  to  her 
lover,  and  then  he  shuts  the  door  and  leaves  the  two  to  themselves.  That 
is  all  that  any  of  us  can  do.  You  must  yourself  draw  the  water  from  the 
well  of  salvation.  We  can  only  tell  you,  *'  There  is  the  well,  and  the 
water  is  sweet." 

183 


THE  SOURCE  OF  THE  TRUE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

I^ow  we  believe,  not  because  of  thy  [the  woman  of  Samaria')  speaking; 
for  -ae  have  heard  for  ourselves,  and  know  that  this  is  indeed  the  Saviour 
of  the  world. — John  iv.  42. 

All  inward  knowledge  of  God,  which  is  the  prerogative  of  every 
July  2. 

Christian  man,  is  made  possible  and  actual  for  any  of  us  only 

by  and  through  the  mission,  and  especially  the  death,  of  Jesus  Christ  our 

Lord.     For  therein  does  He  set  forth  God  to  be  known  as  nothing  else 

but  that  supreme  suffering  and  supreme  self-surrender  upon  the  Cross  ever 

can  do  or  has  done.     We  know  God  as  He  would  have  us  know  liim,  only 

when  we  see  Jesus  suffering  and  dying  for  us ;  and  then  adoringly,  as  one 

in  the  presence  of  a  mystery  into  which  he  can  but  look  a  little  way,  say 

that  even  there  and  then  "he  that  hath  seen  that  Christ  hath  seen  the 

Father." 

Jesus  Christ's  blood,  the  seal  of  the  Covenant,  is  the  great  means  by 
which  this  promise  is  fulfilled,  inasmuch  as  in  that  death  He  sweeps  away 
all  the  hindrances  which  bar  us  out  from  the  knowledge  of  God.  The 
great  dark  wall  of  my  sin  rises  between  me  and  my  Father.  Christ's 
blood,  like  some  magic  drops  upon  a  fortification,  causes  all  the  black 
barrier  to  melt  away  like  a  cloud  ;  and  the  access  to  the  throne  of  God  is 
patent,  even  for  sinful  creatures  like  us.  The  veil  is  rent,  and  by  that 
blood  we  have  access  unlo  the  holiest  of  all. 

Christ  is  the  Source  of  this  knowledge  of  God  ;  inasmuch,  further,  as 
by  His  mission  and  death  there  is  given  to  the  whole  world,  if  it  will  receive 
it,  and  to  all  who  exercise  faith  in  His  name,  the  gift  of  that  Divine  Spirit 
who  teaches  in  the  inmost  spirit  the  true  knowledge  of  His  Son.  To 
delight  in  the  Jaw  of  the  Lord  is  the  sure  way  to  know  more  of  the  Lord. 
One  act  of  obedience  from  the  heart  will  teach  us  more  of  God  than  all  the 
sages  can.  It  is  more  illuminating  simply  to  do  as  He  willed  than  to  read 
and  think  and  speculate  and  study.  *'  If  any  man  wills  to  do  His  will,  he 
shall  know  of  the  teaching."  And  mutual  possession  of  God  by  us,  and 
of  us  by  God,  leads  to  fuller  knowledge.  To  possess  God  is  to  love  Him ; 
and  "he  that  loveth  knoweth  God,  yea  !   rather  is  known  of  God." 

So,  do  not  be  content  with  traditional  religion,  with  a  hearsay  Christianity. 
**  Acquaint  now  thyself  with  Him,"  and  be  at  peace. 

184 


A  TRIUMPHANT  ASSURANCE. 

Thou  hast  made  the  Most  High  thy  habitation  ;  there  shall  no  evil  befal 
thee,  neither  shall  any  plague  come  nigh  thy  tent. — Psalm  xci.  9,  10. 

We  shall  understand  God's  dealings  with  us,  and  get  to  the  very 
^  '  throbbing  heart  of  such  promises  as  these  in  this  91st  Psalm, 
far  better  if  we  start  from  the  certainty  that  whatever  it  means  it  does  not 
mean  that,  with  regard  to  external  calamities  and  disasters,  we  are  going 
to  be  God's  petted  children,  or  to  be  saved  from  the  things  that  fall  upon 
other  people.  No  !  no  !  we  have  to  go  a  great  deal  deeper  than  that.  If 
we  have  felt  a  difficulty,  as  I  suppose  we  all  have  sometimes,  and  are  ready 
to  say  with  the  half-despondent  Psalmist,  *'  My  feet  were  almost  gone,  and 
my  steps  had  well-nigh  slipped  "  ;  when  we  see  what  we  think  the  com- 
plicated mysteries  of  the  Divine  providence  in  this  world,  we  have  to  come 
to  this  belief,  that  the  evil  that  is  in  the  evil  will  never  come  near  the  man 
sheltered  beneath  God's  wing.  The  physical  external  event  may  be  entirely 
the  same  to  him  as  to  another,  who  is  not  covered  with  His  feathers.  Here 
are  two  partners  in  a  business,  the  one  a  Christian  man,  and  the  other  is 
not.  A  common  disaster  overwhelms  them.  They  become  bankrupts.  Is 
their  insolvency  to  the  one  the  same  as  it  is  to  the  other  ?  Here  are  two 
men  on  board  a  ship,  the  one  putting  his  trust  in  God,  the  other  thinking  it 
all  nonsense  to  trust  anything  but  himself.  They  are  both  drowned.  Is 
drowning  the  same  to  the  two  ?  As  their  corpses  lie  side  by  side  among 
the  ooze,  with  the  weeds  over  them,  and  the  lobsters  at  them,  you  may  say 
of  the  one,  but  only  of  the  one,  ' '  There  shall  no  evil  befal  thee,  neither 
any  plague  come  nigh  thy  d\\elling." 

For  the  protection  that  is  granted  to  faith  is  only  to  be  understood  by 
faith.  It  is  deliverance  from  the  evil  in  the  evil  which  indicates,  as  no 
exaggera'ion,  nor  as  merely  an  experience  and  a  promise  peculiar  to  the 
old  theorising  of  Israel,  but  not  now  realised — the  grand  sayings  of  this 
psalm.  The  poison  is  all  wiped  off  the  arrow  by  that  Divine  protection. 
It  may  still  wound,  but  it  does  not  putrefy  the  flesh.  The  sewage  water 
comes  down,  but  it  passes  into  the  filtering  bed,  and  is  disinfected  and 
cleansed  before  it  is  permitted  to  flow  over  our  fields. 

And  so,  if  any  of  you  are  finding  that  the  psalm  is  not  outwardly  true, 
and  that  through  the  covering  wing  the  storm  of  hail  has  come  and  beaten 
you  down,  do  not  suppose  that  that  in  the  slightest  degree  impinges  upon 
the  reality  and  truthfulness  of  this  great  promise,  "He  shall  cover  thee 
with  Plis  feathers."  Anything  that  has  come  throug'i  iheui  is  manifestly 
not  an  "  evil."  '*  Who  is  he  that  will  harm  you  if  ye  be  followers  of  that 
which  is  good?"  "If  God  be  for  us,  what  can  be  against  us?"  Not 
what  the  world  calls,  and  our  wrung  hearts  feel  that  it  rightly  calls, 
"sorrows"  and  "afflictions."  These  all  work  for  our  good;  and  protec- 
tion consists,  not  in  averting  their  blows,  but  in  changing  their  character. 

185 


THE   COVERING   WING. 

He  shall  cover  thee  with  His  pinions,  and  under  His  wings  shall  thou 
take  refuge  ;  His  truth  is  a  shield  and  a  buckler. — PsALM  xci.  4. 

The  main  idea  in  this  image  is  that  of  protection  and  fostering. 
'  There  seems  to  me  to  be  a  very  distinct  triad  of  thoughts.  There 
is  the  covering  wing  ;  there  is  the  flight  to  its  protection  ;  and  there  is  the 
warrant  for  that  flight.  "  He  shall  cover  thee  with  His  pinions"  ;  that  is 
the  Divine  act.  "  Under  His  wings  shalt  thou  trust  "  ;  that  is  the  human 
condition.  "His  truth  shall  be  thy  shield  and  buckler";  that  is  the 
Divine  manifestation  which  makes  the  human  condition  possible.  Thus 
the  idea  is  that  of  the  expanded  pinion,  beneath  the  shelter  of  which  the 
callow  young  lie  and  are  gathered.  Whatsoever  kites  may  be  in  the  sky, 
whatsoever  stoats  and  weasels  may  be  in  the  hedges,  they  are  safe  there. 
The  image  suggests  not  only  the  thought  of  protection,  but  those  of  fostering, 
downy  warmth,  peaceful  proximity  to  a  heart  that  throbs  with  parental 
love,  and  a  multitude  of  other  happy  privileges  realised  by  those  who  nestle 
beneath  that  wing.  But  while  these  subsidiary  ideas  are  not  to  be  lost  sight 
of,  the  promise  of  protection  is  to  be  kept  clear  as  that  chiefly  intended  by 
the  Psalmist. 

This  psalm  rings  throughout  with  the  doctrine  that  a  man  who  dwells 
"in  the  secret  place  of  the  Most  High"  has  absolute  immunity  from  all 
sorts  of  evil,  and  there  are,  too,  regions  in  which  that  immunity,  secured 
bv  being  under  the  shadow  of  the  Almighty,  is  exemplified  in  the  psalm  : 
the  one,  that  of  our  outward  dangers  ;  the  other,  that  of  temptation  to  sin 
and  what  we  may  call  spiritual  foes.  Now,  these  two  regions  and  depart- 
ments in  which  the  Christian  man  does  realise,  in  the  measure  of  his  faith, 
the  Divine  protection  exhibit  that  protection  as  administered  in  two 
entirely  different  ways.  No  man  that  lies  under  the  shadow  of  God,  and 
has  his  heart  filled  with  the  continual  consciousness  of  that  presence,  is 
likely  to  fall  before  the  assaults  of  evil  that  tempt  him  away  from  God  ;  and 
the  defence  which  He  gives  in  that  region  is  yet  more  magnificently 
impregnable  than  the  defence  which  He  gives  against  external  evils.  For, 
as  the  New  Testament  teaches  us,  we  are  kept  from  sin  not  by  any  outward 
breastplate  or  armour,  or  even  by  the  Divine  wing  lying  above  us  to  cover 
us,  but  by  an  indwelling  Christ  in  our  hearts.  His  Spirit  within  us  makes 
UB  free  from  the  law  of  sin  and  death,  and  conquerors  over  alJ  temptations. 

1S6 


A   SHELTER   FROM   THE   STORM. 

A  man  shall  be  as  a  hiding  place  from  the  wind,  and  a  covert  from  the 
tempest ;  as  rivers  of  wa!er  in  a  dry  place,  as  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock  in 
a  weary  land. — Is  A.  xxxii.  2. 

*'  Under  His  wings  shalt  thou  flee  to  a  refuge.'*     Is  not  that  a 
July  5. 

vivid,  intense,  picturesque,  but  most  illuminative,  way  of  telling 

us  what  is  the  very  essence,  and  what  is  the  urgency,  and  what  is  the  worth 
of  what  we  call  faith  ?  The  Old  Testament  is  full  of  the  teaching — which 
is  masked  to  ordinary  readers ;  the  same  teaching  as  the  New  Testament 
is  confessedly  full  of— of  the  necessity  of  faith  as  the  one  bond  that  binds 
men  to  God.  If  only  our  translators  had  wisely  determined  upon  a  uniform 
rendering  in  Old  and  New  Testament  of  words  that  are  synon)'mous,  the 
reader  would  have  seen  what  is  often  now  reserved  for  the  student,  that  all 
these  sayings  in  the  Old  Testament  Book  about  "trusting  in  God"  run  on 
all  fours  with  "  believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  thou  shalt  be  saved." 
But  just  mark,  the  faith  which  unites  with  God,  and  brings  a  man 
beneath  the  shadow  of  His  wings,  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  flying 
into  the  refuge  that  is  provided  for  us.  Does  that  not  speak  to  us  of  the 
urgency  of  the  case  ?  Does  that  not  speak  to  us  eloquently  of  the  perils 
which  environ  us?  Does  it  not  speak  to  us  of  the  necessity  of  flight,  swift, 
with  all  the  powers  of  our  will  ?  Is  the  faith  which  is  a  flying  into  a  refuge 
fairly  described  as  an  intellectual  act  of  believing  in  a  testimony  ?  Surely  it 
is  something  a  great  deal  more  than  that  !  A  man  out  in  the  plain,  with 
the  avenger  of  blood,  hot-breathed  and  bloody-minded,  at  his  back,  might 
believe,  as  much  as  he  liked,  that  there  would  be  safet)^  within  the  walls  of 
the  City  of  Refuge,  but  unless  he  took  to  his  heels  without  loss  of  time,  the 
spear  would  be  in  his  back  before  he  knew  where  he  was.  There  are 
plenty  of  men  that  know  all  about  the  security  of  the  Refuge,  and  believe 
it  utterly,  but  never  run  for  it ;  and  so  never  get  into  it.  Faith  is  the 
gathering  up  of  the  whole  powers  of  the  nature  to  fling  myself  into  an 
Asylum,  to  cast  myself  into  God's  arms,  to  take  shelter  beneath  the  shadow 
of  His  wings.  And  unless  a  man  does  that,  and  swiftly,  he  is  exposed  to 
every  bird  of  prey  in  the  sky,  and  to  every  beast  of  prey  lurking  in  wait  for 
him.  A  man  is  not  saved  because  he  believes  that  he  is  saved,  but  because 
by  believing  he  lays  hold  of  the  salvation.  It  is  not  the  flight  that  is 
impregnable,  and  makes  those  behind  its  strong  bulwarks  secure.  Not  my 
outstretched  hand,  but  a  Hand  that  my  hand  grasps,  is  what  holds  me  up. 
The  power  of  faith  is  but  that  it  brings  me  into  contact  with  God,  and  sets 
me  behind  the  seven-fold  bastions  of  the  Almighty  protection, 

187 


OUR  DIVINE   WARRANT. 

The  faithful  God,  which  keepeth  covenant  and  mercy  with  thetn  that  love 
Hiyyi  and  keep  His  conttyiandments  to  a  thousand  generations. — Deut.  vii.  9. 

You  cannot  trust  a  God  that  has  not  given  you  an  inkling  of  His 
character  or  disposition,  but  if  He  has  spoken,  then  "  you  know 
where  to  have  Him."  How  can  a  man  be  encouraged  to  fly  into  a  refuge 
unless  he  is  absolutely  sure  that  there  is  an  entrance  for  him  into  it,  and 
that,  entering,  he  is  safe?  And  that  security  is  provided  in  the  great 
thought  of  God's  troth.  "Thy  faithfulness  is  like  the  great  mountains." 
*'  Who  is  like  unto  Thee,  O  Lord  ;  or  to  Thy  faithfulness  round  about  Thee  ?  " 
That  faithfulness  shall  be  our  "  shield,"  not  a  tiny  targe  that  a  man  could 
bear  upon  his  left  arm,  but  the  word  means  the  large  shield,  planted  in  the 
ground  in  front  of  the  soldier,  covering  him,  however  hot  the  fight,  and 
circling  him  around,  like  a  tower  of  iron. 

God  is  ''faithful"  to  all  the  obligations  under  which  He  has  come  by 
making  us.  That  is  what  one  of  the  New  Testament  writers  tells  us  when» 
he  speaks  about  Him  as  *'  a  faithful  Creator."  Then,  if  He  has  put  desires 
into  our  hearts,  be  sure  that  somewhere  there  is  their  satisfaction  ;  and  if 
He  has  given  us  needs,  be  sure  that  in  Him  there  is  the  supply  ;  and  if  He 
has  lodged  in  us  aspirations  which  make  us  restless,  be  sure  that  if  we  will 
turn  them  to  Him,  they  will  be  satisfied  and  we  shall  be  at  rest.  "He 
never  sends  mouths  but  He  sends  meat  to  fill  them."  "  He  remembers  our 
frame,"  and  measures  His  dealings  accordingly.  When  He  made  me  He 
bound  Himself  to  make  it  possible  that  I  should  be  blessed  for  ever.  And 
He  has  done  it. 

God  is  faithful  to  His  word,  according  to  that  great  saying  in  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews,  where  the  writer  tells  us  that  by  "God's  counsel,"  and 
"  God's  oath,"  "  two  immutable  things,"  we  might  have  "  strong  consola- 
tion who  have  fled  for  refuge  to  lay  hold  on  the  hope  set  before  us." 

God  is  faithful  to  His  own  past.  The  more  He  has  done  the  more  He 
will  do.  "  Thou  hast  been  my  help  :  leave  me  not,  neither  forsake  me." 
Therein  we  present  a  plea  which  God  Himself  will  honour.  And  He  is 
faithful  to  His  own  past  in  a  yet  wider  sense.  For  all  the  revelations  of 
His  love  and  of  His  grace  in  times  that  are  gone,  though  they  might  be 
miraculous  in  their  form,  are  permanent  in  their  essence.  So  one  of  the 
psalmists,  hundreds  of  years  after  the  time  that  Israel  was  led  through  the 
wilderness,  sang,  "  There  did  wi? '" — of  this  present  generation — "rejoice 
in  Him."  What  has  been,  is,  and  will  be,  for  Thou  art  "  the  same  yester- 
day, and  to-day,  and  for  ever." 

We  have  no  God  that  lurks  in  darkness,  but  one  that  has  come  into  the 
light.  We  have  to  run,  not  into  a  refuge  that  is  built  upon  a  "  perhaps," 
but  upon  "  Verily,  verily  !  I  say  unto  thee."  Let  us  buikl  rock  upon  rock, 
and  let  our  faith  correspond  to  the  faithfulness  of  Him  that  has  promised. 

188 


THE   ANGEL  OF  THE   LORD. 

The  Angel  of  the  Lord  encampeth  round  about  them  that  fear  Htm,  and 
delivereth  them. — Psalm  xxxiv.  7. 

There  run  throughout  the  whole  of  the  Old  Testament  notices 
of  the  occasional  manifestation  of  a  mysterious  person  who  is 
named  ^^  the  Angel,"  "  the  Angel  of  the  Lord."  For  instance,  in  the  great 
scene  in  the  wilderness,  where  the  bush  burned  and  was  not  consumed.  He 
who  appeared  is  named  '''■the  Angel  of  the  Lord";  and  His  lips  declare 
''  I  Am  that  I  Am,'^  In  like  manner,  soon  after,  the  Divine  voice  speaks 
to  Moses  of  "the  Angel  in  whom  is  My  name."  When  Balaam  had  his 
path  blocked  amongst  the  vineyards,  it  was  a  replica  of  the  figure  that 
stayed  his  way — a  Man  with  a  drawn  sword  in  His  hand,  who  speaks  in 
autocratic  and  Divine  form.  When  the  parents  of  Samson  were  apprised 
of  the  coming  birth  of  the  hero,  it  was  the  Angel  of  the  Lord  that 
appeared  to  them,  accepted  their  sacrifice,  declared  the  Divine  will,  and 
disappeared  in  a  flame  of  fire  from  the  altar.  A  psalm  speaks  of  "  the 
Angel  of  the  Lord  "  as  "  encamping  round  about  them  that  fear  Him,  and 
delivering  them."  Isaiah  tells  us  of  the  "Angel  of  His  face,"  who  was 
"afflicted  in  all  Israel's  afflictions,  and  saved  them."  And  the  last 
prophetic  utterance  of  the  Old  Testament  is  most  distinct  and  remarkable 
in  the  strange  identification  and  separation  of  Jehovah  and  the  Angel,  when 
it  says,  "  the  Lord  shall  suddenly  come  to  His  temple,  even  the  Angel  of  the 
Covenant."  Now,  if  we  put  all  these  passages — and  they  are  but  select 
instances — if  we  put  all  these  passages  together,  I  think  we  cannot  help 
seeing  that  there  runs,  as  I  said,  throughout  the  whole  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment a  singular  strain  of  revelation  in  regard  to  a  person  who,  in  a 
remarkable  manner,  is  distinguished  from  the  created  hosts  of  angel  beings, 
and  also  is  distinguished  from,  and  yet  in  name,  attributes,  and  worship  all 
but  identified  with,  the  Lord  Himself. 

If  we  turn  to  the  narrative  in  Joshua  v.  we  find  there  similar  phenomena 
marked  out.  For  this  mysterious  "Man  with  the  sword  drawn"  in  His 
hand,  quotes  the  very  words  which  were  spoken  at  the  bush,  when  He  says, 
"  Loose  thy  shoes  from  off  thy  feet,  for  the  place  whereon  thou  standest  is 
holy  "  ;  and  by  fair  implication.  He  would  have  us  to  identify  the  persons  in 
these  two  great  theophanies.  He  ascribes  to  Himself,  in  the  further  con- 
versation in  the  next  chapter,  directly  Divine  attributes,  and  is  named  by  the 
sacred  name,  "  The  Lord  said  unto  Joshua,  see  I  have  given  into  thy  hand 
Jericho  and  its  king." 

189 


THE  WORD  OF  THE  LORD. 

And  the  Word  became  flesh,  and  dwelt  among  us. — John  i.  14. 

If  we  turn  to  the  New  Testament  we  find  that  there,  under  another 
'  image,  the  same  strain  of  thought  as  in  the  Old  Testament  is  pre- 
sented. The  Word  of  God,  who  from  everlasring  "was  with  God,  and  was 
God,"  is  represented  as  being  the  Agent  of  Creation,  the  Source  of  all  human 
illumination,  the  Director  of  Providence,  the  Lord  of  the  Universe.  "  By 
Him  were  all  things,  and  in  Him  all  things  consist."  So,  surely,  these  two 
halves  make  a  whole :  and  the  Angel  of  the  Lord,  separate  and  yet  so  strangely 
identified  with  Jehovah,  who  at  the  crises  of  the  nation's  history,  and  stages 
of  the  development  of  the  process  of  Revelation,  is  manifested,  and  the 
Eternal  Word  of  God,  whom  the  New  Testament  reveals  to  us,  are  one  and 
the  same. 

This  truth  was  transiently  manifested  in  the  Old  Testament.  The 
vision  of  Joshua  {see  Joshua  v. )  passed,  the  ground  that  was  hallowed  by 
His  foot  is  undistinguished  now  in  the  sweltering  plain  round  the  mound 
that  once  was  Jericho.  But  the  fact  remains  :  the  humanity,  that  was  only 
in  appearance,  and  for  a  few  minutes  assumed  then,  has  now  been  taken  up 
into  everlasting  union  with  the  Divine  nature,  and  a  Man  reigns  on  the 
Throne  and  is  Commander  of  all  who  battle  for  the  truth  and  the  right. 
The  eternal  order  of  the  universe  is  before  us  here. 

It  only  remains  to  say  a  word  in  reference  to  the  sweep  of  the  command 
which  Joshua's  vision  assigns  to  the  Angel  of  the  Lord.  "  Captain  of  the 
Lord's  host "  means  a  great  deal  more  than  the  true  General  of  Israel's 
little  army.  It  does  mean  that,  or  the  words  and  the  vision  would  cease  to 
have  relevance  and  bearing  on  the  moment's  circumstances  and  need.  But 
it  includes  also,  as  the  usage  of  Scripture  would  sufficiently  show,  if  it  were 
needful  to  adduce  instances  of  it,  all  the  ordered  ranks  of  loftier  intelligent 
beings,  and  all  the  powers  and  forces  of  the  universe.  These  are  conceived 
ot  as  an  embattled  host,  comparable  to  an  army  in  the  strictness  of  their 
discipline  and  their  obedience  to  a  single  will.  It  is  the  modern  thought 
that  the  universe  is  a  Cosmos  and  not  a  Chaos,  an  ordered  unit,  with  the 
addition  of  the  truth  beyond  the  reach  and  range  of  science,  that  its  unity  is 
the  expression  of  a  personal  will.  It  is  the  same  thought  which  the 
centurion  had,  to  Christ's  wonder,  when  he  compared  his  own  power  as  an 
officer  in  a  legion,  where  his  will  was  implicitly  obeyed,  to  the  power  of 
Christ  over  diseases  and  sorrows  and  miseries  and  death,  and  recognised 
that  all  these  were  Ilis  servants,  to  whom,  if  His  autocratic  lips  chose  to  say 
"  Go,"  they  went,  and  if  he  said,  "  Do  this,"  they  did  it.  So  the  Lord  of 
the  universe  and  its  ordered  ranks  is  Jesus  Christ.  That  is  the  truth  which 
was  flashed  from  the  unknown  like  a  vanishing  meteor  in  the  midnight 
before  the  face  of  Joshua,  and  which  stands  like  the  noonday  sun,  unsetting 
and  irradiating  for  us  who  live  under  the  Gospel. 

190 


THE  CAPTAIN  OF  THE  LORD'S  HOST. 

And  He  said,  Nay ;  but  as  Captain  of  the  Host  of  the  Lord  am  I  now 
come. — Joshua  v.   14. 

The  army  of  Israel  was  just  beginning  a  hard  conflict  under  an 
untried  leader.  Behind  them  Jordan  barred  their  retreat,  in 
front  of  them  Jericho  forbade  their  advance.  Most  of  them  had  never  seen 
a  fortified  city,  and  had  no  experience  nor  engines  for  a  siege.  So  we  may 
well  suppose  that  many  doubts  and  fears  shook  the  courage  of  the  host  as  it 
drew  around  the  doomed  city.  Their  chief  had  his  own  heavy  burden.  He 
seems  to  have  gone  apart  to  meditate  on  what  his  next  step  was  to  be. 
Absorbed  in  thought,  he  lifts  up  his  eyes  mechanically,  as  brooding  men 
will,  not  expecting  to  see  anything,  and  is  startled  by  the  silent  figure  of  "  a 
Man  with  a  sword  drawn  "  in  His  hand,  close  beside  him.  There  is  nothing 
supernatural  in  His  appearance  ;  and  the  immediate  thought  of  the  leader 
is,  "Is  this  one  of  the  enemy  that  has  stolen  upon  my  solitude?"  So, 
promptly  and  boldly,  he  strides  right  up  to  Him  with  the  quick  challenge  • 
*'  Whose  side  are  You  on  ?  Are  You  one  of  us,  or  from  the  enemy's  camp  ?  " 
And  then  the  silent  lips  open  :  "  Upon  neither  the  one  nor  the  other.  I 
am  not  on  your  side,  you  are  on  Mine,  for  as  Captain  of  the  Lord's  host 
am  I  come  up."  And  then  Joshua  falls  on  his  face,  recognises  his  Com- 
mander-in-Chief, owns  himself  a  subordinate,  and  asks  for  orders.  "What 
saith  my  Lord  unto  His  servant  ?  " 

*'  The  Captain  of  the  Lord's  host."  He  Himself  takes  part  in  the  fight. 
He  is  not  like  a  general  who,  on  some  safe  knoll  behind  the  army,  sends 
his  soldiers  to  death,  and  keeps  his  own  skin  whole  ;  but  He  has  fought  and 
He  is  fighting.  Do  you  remember  that  wonderful  picture  in  two  halves,  at 
the  end  of  one  of  the  gospels,  "  the  Lord  went  up  into  Heaven  and  sat  at  the 
right  hand  of  God,  .  .  .  they  went  forth  everywhere  preaching  the  word  ?  " 
Strange  contrasts  between  the  repose  of  the  seated  Christ  and  the  toils  of 
His  peripatetic  servants  !  Yes  !  Strange  contrast ;  but  the  next  words 
harmonise  the  two  halves  of  it :  "  The  Lord  also  working  with  them,  and 
confirming  the  word  with  signs  following."  The  Leader  does  not  so  rest  as 
that  He  does  not  fight ;  and  the  servants  do  not  need  so  to  fight  as  that  they 
cannot  rest.  Thus  the  old  legends  of  many  a  land  and  tongue  have  a 
glorious  truth  in  them  to  the  eye  of  faith  ;  and  at  the  head  of  all  the  armies 
that  are  charging  against  any  form  of  the  world's  misery  and  sin  there  moves 
the  form  of  the  Son  of  Man,  whose  aid  we  have  to  invoke,  even  from  His 
crowned  repose  at  the  right  hand  of  God.  "  Gird  Thy  sword  upon  Thy  thigh, 
O  Most  Mighty,  and  in  Thy  majesty  ride  forth  prosperously,  and  Thy  right 
hand  shall  teach  Thee  terrible  things." 

191 


OUR  LEADER    N  THE  WORLD'S  WARFARE. 

In  the  world  ye  have  tribulation  :  but  be  of  good  cheer ;  I  have  overcomt 
the  world. — John  xvi.  33. 

If  the  revelation  made  to  Joshua  and  his  host  be  for  us  as  truly  as 
^  '  for  them  a  revelation  of  who  is  our  true  leader,  surely  all  of  us  in 
our  various  degrees,  and  especially  any  of  us  who  have  any  ''Quixotic 
crusade  "  for  the  world's  good  on  our  consciences  and  on  our  hands,  may 
take  the  lessons  and  the  encouragements  that  are  here.  Own  your  Leader. 
That  is  one  plain  duty.  And  recognise  this  fact,  that  by  no  other  power 
than  by  His,  and  with  no  other  weapons  than  those  which  He  puts  into  our 
hands,  in  His  Cross  and  meekness,  can  a  world's  evils  be  overcome,  and  the 
victory  be  won  for  the  right  and  the  truth.  I  have  no  faith  in  crusades  which 
are  not  under  the  Captain  of  our  salvation.  And  I  would  that  the  earnest 
men,  and  there  are  many  of  them, — the  laborious  and  the  self-sacrificing  men 
in  many  departments  of  philanthropy  and  benevolence  and  social  reforma- 
tion— who  labour  unaware  of  who  is  their  Leader,  and  not  dependent  upon 
His  help,  nor  trusting  in  His  strength — would  see  beside  them  the  Man 
with  the  drawn  sword  in  His  hand,  the  Christ  with  the  sharp  two-edged 
sword  going  out  of  His  mouth,  by  whom,  and  by  whom  alone,  the  world's 
evil  can  be  overcome  and  slain. 

Own  your  General ;  submit  to  His  authority  ;  pick  the  weapons  that  He 
can  bless  ;  trust  absolutely  in  His  help.  We  may  have,  we  shall  have,  in  all 
enterprises  for  God  and  man  that  are  worth  doing,  need  of  patience,  just  as 
the  army  of  Israel  had  to  parade  for  six  weary  days  round  Jericho  blowing 
their  useless  trumpets,  whilst  the  impregnable  walls  stood  firm,  and  the 
defenders  flouted  and  jeered  their  aimless  procession.  But  the  seventh 
day  will  come,  and  at  the  trumpet  blast  down  will  go  the  loftiest  ramparts 
of  the  cities  that  are  walled  up  to  heaven,  with  a  rush  and  a  crash,  and 
through  the  dust  and  over  the  ruined  rubbish  Christ's  soldiers  will  march 
and  take  possession.  So  trust  in  your  Leader,  and  be  sure  of  the  victory, 
and  have  patience  and  keep  on  at  your  work. 

Do  not  make  Joshua's  mistake.  *'  Art  Thou  for  us  ?  " — Nay  !  *'  Thou  art 
for  yl/<?."  That  is  a  very  different  thing.  We  have  the  right  to  be  sure  that 
God  is  on  our  side,  when  we  have  made  sure  that  we  are  on  God's.  So 
take  care  of  self-will  and  self-regard,  and  human  passions,  and  all  the  other 
parasitical  insects  that  creep  round  pliilanthropic  religious  work,  lest  they 
spoil  your  service.  There  is  a  great  deal  that  calls  itself  after  Jehu's  fashion, 
"  My  zeal  for  the  Lord,"  which  is  nothing  better  than  zeal  for  my  own 
notions  and  their  preponderance.  Therefore  we  must  strip  ourselves  of  all 
that,  and  not  fancy  that  the  cause  is  ours,  and  then  graciously  admit  Christ 
to  help  us,  but  recognise  that  it  is  His,  and  lowly  submit  ourselves  to  His 
direction,  and  what  we  do,  do,  and  when  we  fight,  fi^ht,  in  His  name  and 
for  His  sake. 

I<>2 


OUR  ALLY  IN  OUR  WARFARE  WITH  OURSELVES. 
/  can  do  all  things  in  Hint  that  strengtheneth  me. — Phil.  iv.  13. 

-  ,    -J     That  is  the  worst  fight — our  battle  with  ourselves ;  far  worse 

"  ^  '  than  all  these  Plittites  and  Hivites,  and  the  other  tribes  with 
their  barbarous  names.  Far  worse  than  all  external  foes  are  the  foes  that 
each  man  carries  about  in  his  own  heart.  In  that  slow  hand-to-hand  and 
foot-to-foot  slruggle  I  do  not  believe  that  there  is  any  conquering  power 
available  for  a  man  that  can  for  a  moment  be  compared  with  the  power 
that  comes  through  submission  to  Christ's  command  and  acceptance  of  Christ's 
help.  He  has  fought  every  foot  of  the  ground  before  us.  We  have  to  "  run 
the  race" — to  take  another  metaphor — "  that  is  set  before  us,  looking  unto 
Jesus,"  the  great  Leader,  and  in  His  own  Self  the  Perfecter  of  the  faith  which 
conquers.  In  Him,  His  example,  the  actual  communication  of  His  Divine 
Spirit,  and  in  the  motives  for  brave  and  persistent  conflict  which  flow  from 
Plis  Cross  and  Passion,  we  shall  find  that  which  alone  will  make  us  the 
victors  in  this  internecine  warfare.  There  can  be  no  better  directory  given 
to  any  man  than  to  tread  in  Christ's  footsteps,  and  learn  how  to  fight  from 
Him,  who  in  the  wilderness  repelled  the  triple  assault  with  the  single  "  It  is 
written  "  ;  thus  recognising  the  word  and  will  of  God  as  the  only  directory 
and  defence.  Thus,  if  we  humbly  take  service  in  Plis  ranks,  and  ask  Him  to 
show  us  where  our  foes  within  are,  and  to  give  us  the  grace  to  grapple  with 
them,  and  cast  them  out,  anything  is  possible  rather  than  ultimate  defeat ; 
and  however  long  and  sore  the  struggle  may  be,  its  length  and  its  severity 
are  precious  parts  of  the  disciphne  that  makes  us  strong,  and  we  are  at  last 
more  than  conquerors  through  Him  that  loveth  us. 

Think  of  Christ,  what  lie  is,  and  what  resources  He  has  at  His  back,  of 
what  are  His  claims  for  our  service,  and  loyal,  militant  obedience.  Think 
of  the  certain  victory  of  all  who  follow  Plim  amongst  the  armies  of  Heaven, 
clad  in  fine  linen,  clean  and  white.  Think  of  the  crown  and  the  throne 
for  Him  that  overcomes. 

Remember  the  destructive  powers  that  sleep  in  Him  :  the  drawn  sword 
in  His  hand  ;  the  two-edged  sword  out  of  Plis  mouth  ;  the  wrath  of  the  Lamb. 
Think  of  the  ultimate  certain  defeat  of  all  antagonisms  ;  of  that  last  cam- 
paign when  Pie  goes  forth  with  the  name  written  on  liis  vesture  and  on  His 
thigh,  "  King  of  kings  and  Lord  of  lords."  Think  of  how  Pie  strikes  through 
kings  in  the  day  of  Plis  wrath,  and  fills  the  place  with  the  bodies  of  the 
dead  ;  and  how  His  enemies  become  His  footstool. 

Ponder.  His  own  solemn  word,  "  He  that  is  not  with  Me  is  against 
Me."  There  is  no  neutraUty  in  this  warfare.  Either  we  are  for  Him  or  we 
are  for  His  adversary.  "  Under  which  King  ? — speak  or  die  ! "  As  a  sensible 
man,  not  indifferent  to  your  highest  and  lasting  well-being,  ask  yourself, 
"  Can  I,  with  my  ten  thousand,  meet  Him  with  His  twenty  thousand  ?"  Put 
yourself  under  His  orders,  and  Pie  will  be  on  your  side.  "  He  will  teach 
your  hands  to  war,  and  your  fingers  to  fight ;  will  cover  your  head  in  the 
day  of  battle,"  and  bring  you  at  last,  palm-bearing  and  laurel-crowned,  to 
that  blissful  state  where  there  will  still  be  service,  and  He  still  be  the  Captain 
of  the  Lord's  host,  but  where  swords  will  be  beaten  into  ploughshares  and  the 
victors  shall  need  to  learn  war  no  more. 

193  O 


ALL  HAVE  SINNED. 

There  is  no  distmciioit ;  for  all  have  sinned^  and  fall  short  of  the  glory 
God. — Rom.  iii.  22,  23. 

What  does  the  Bible  mean  by  sin  ?  Everything  that  goes  against 
"  ^  'or  neglects  God's  law.  And  if  you  will  bring  into  all  the  acts  of 
every  life  the  reference,  which  really  is  there,  to  God  and  His  will,  you  will 
not  need  anything  more  to  establish  the  fact  that  "all  have  sinned,  and 
come  short  of  the  glory  of  God."  Whatever  other  differences  there  are 
between  men,  there  is  this  fundamental  similarity.  Neglect — which  is  a 
breach— of  the  law  of  God  pertains  to  all  mankind.  Everything  that  we  do 
ought  to  have  reference  to  Him.  Does  everything  that  we  do  have  such 
reference  ?  If  not,  there  is  a  quahty  of  evil  in  it.  For  the  very  definition 
of  sin  is  living  to  myself  and  neglecting  Him.  He  is  the  Centre  ;  and,  if  I 
might  use  a  violent  figure,  every  planet  that  wrenches  itself  away  from  gravi- 
tation towards,  and  revolution  round,  that  Centre,  and  prefers  to  whirl  on  its 
own  axis,  has  broken  the  law  of  the  celestial  spheres,  and  brought  discord 
into  the  heavenly  harmony.     All  men  stand  condemned  in  this  respect. 

Now,  there  is  no  need  to  exaggerate.  I  am  not  saying  that  all  men 
are  on  the  same  level.  I  know  there  are  great  differences  in  the  nobleness, 
purity,  and  goodness  of  lives,  and  Christianity  has  never  been  more  unfairly 
represented  than  when  good  men  have,  as  one  of  them  called,  with  St. 
Augustine,  the  virtues  of  godless  men,  "splendid  vices."  But  though  the 
differences  are  not  unimportant,  the  similarity  is  far  more  important.  The 
pure,  clean-living  man,  and  the  gentle,  loving  woman,  though  they  stand 
high  above  the  sensuality  of  the  profligate,  the  criminal,  stand  in  this  respect 
on  the  same  footing  that  they,  too,  have  to  put  their  hands  on  their  mouths, 
and  their  mouths  in  the  dust,  and  cry,  "Unclean!"  I  do  not  want  to 
exaggerate,  and  sure  I  am  that  if  men  will  be  honest  with  themselves  there 
is  a  voice  that  responds  to  the  indictment  when  I  say  sadly,  in  the  solenin 
language  of  Scripture,  "we  all  have  sinned,  and  come  short  of  the  glory  of 
God.  For  there  is  no  difference."  If  you  do  not  believe  in  a  God,  you 
can  laugh  at  the  old  wife's  notion  of  "  sin."  If  you  do  believe  in  a  God, 
you  are  shut  up  to  believe  this  other,  "  Against  Thee,  Thee  only,  have  I 
sinned."  And  if  this  universal  fad  is  indeed  a  fact,  it  is  the  gravest  element 
in  human  nature.  It  matters  very  little,  in  comparison,  whether  you  and  I 
are  wise  or  foolish,  educated  or  illiterate,  rich  or  poor,  happy  or  miserable. 
All  the  superficial  distinctions  which  separate  men  from  one  another,  and 
are  all  right  in  their  own  places,  dwindle  away  into  nothing  before  this 
solemn  truth,  that  in  every  frame  there  is  a  plague  spot,  and  that  the  leprosy 
has  smitten  us  alL 

194 


"/  HAVE  SINNED." 

Against  Thee,  Thee  only,  have  I  sinned,  and  done  that  which  is  evil  in 
Thy  sight. — Psalm  li.  4. 

J  .  .3  Do  not  let  us  lose  ourselves  in  generalities.  All  means  each,  and 
*  each  means  me.  We  all  know  how  hard  it  is  to  bring  general 
truths  to  bear  with  all  their  weight  upon  ourselves.  That  is  an  old  common 
phase.  "All  men  think  all  men  mortal  but  themselves"  ;  and  we  are  quite 
comfortable  when  this  indictment  is  kept  in  the  general  terms  of  universality 
— "  all  have  sinned."  Suppose  I  sharpen  the  point  a  little — God  grant  that 
the  point  may  get  to  some  indurated  conscience  ! — suppose,  instead  of 
reading  "  All  have  sinned,"  I  beseech  each  one  of  my  readers  to  strike  out 
the  general  word,  and  put  in  the  individual  one,  and  to  say,  "  /  have  sinned." 
You  have  to  do  with  this  indictment  just  as  we  have  to  do  with  the  promises 
and  offers  of  the  Gospel — wherever  there  is  a  "  whosoever,  "  put  your  pen 
through  it,  and  write  your  own  name  over  it.  The  blank  cheque  is  given 
to  us  in  regard  of  the  promises  and  offers,  and  we  have  to  fill  in  our  own 
names.  The  charge  is  handed  to  us  in  regard  to  this  indictment,  and  if  we 
are  wise  we  shall  write  our  own  names  there,  too.  I  leave  this  on  your  con- 
science, and  I  will  venture  to  ask  that  you  would  put  to  yourself  the 
question,  "  Is  it  I  ?"  iVnd  sure  I  am  that,  if  you  do,  you  will  see  a  finger 
pointing  out  of  the  darkness,  and  hear  a  voice  sterner  than  that  of  Nathan 
saying,  "  Thou  art  the  man." 

The  people  in  one  crowd  that  gathered  about  Christ  were  not  all 
diseased.  Some  of  them  He  taught  ;  some  of  them  He  cured ;  but  that 
crowd,  where  healthy  men  mingled  with  cripples,  is  no  type  of  the  condition 
of  humanity.  Rather,  we  are  to  find  it  in  that  Pool  of  Eethescla,  with  its 
five  porches,  wherein  lay  a  multitude  of  impotent  folk,  tortured  with  varieties 
of  sickness,  and  none  of  them  sound.  Blessed  be  God  !  we  are  in  Betkesda, 
which  means  "  house  of  mercy,"  and  the  Fountain  that  can  heal  is  perpetually 
springing  up  beside  us  all.  There  is  a  disease  which  affects  and  infects  all 
manlvind — sin.     Sin  is  universal,  and  it  is  personal.     "  /  have  sinned." 

I  ask  you  to  go  into  the  depths  of  your  own  heart,  and  to  be  honest 
in  recalling  your  own  experience,  and  to  say  if,  notwithstanding  all  the 
gladness  of  a  godless  life,  there  does  not  lie,  grim  and  silent  for  the  most 
part,  but  there,  and  felt  to  be  there  all  the  same,  a  great  yearning  and 
consciousness  of  unrest.  Every  good  has  in  it  some  fatal  flaw  and  incom- 
pleteness. There  is  always  a  break  in  the  circle  ;  always  a  stone  missing 
out  of  the  bracelet.  There  is  always  one  unlighted  window  in  the  Aladdin's 
palace.  There  is  always  a  Mordecai  sitting  dark  as  a  thunder-cloud  and 
unparticipant  of  the  common  emotion,  who  makes  Haman  say,  "All  this 
availeth  nothing."  There  is  always  disappointment  in  earthly  fruition. 
The  fish  never  proves  so  big  when  it  is  lying  panting  on  the  grass  as  it  did 
in  the  water,  when  the  fisher  was  struggling  with  it.  The  chase  is  always 
better  than  the  capture.  In  all  earthly  good  there  is  a  fatal  disproportion 
between  it  and  the  heart  that  seeks  to  solace  itself  with  it ;  so  that  after  all 
satisfactions,  there  is  the  old  cry  of  the  heart,  "I  hunger  still."  And, 
above  all,  there  is  the  certainty  which  pushes  itself  in—  like  the  skeleton 
at  the  feasts  of  the  Egyptian  kings,  or  the  mocking  slave  that  walked 
behind  the  conqueror  in  his  triumph  as  he  went  up  the  steps  of  the  capitol 
—  the  certainty  that  we  have  to  leave  them  all  behind  us.  And  what  is 
the  naked  soul  going  to  do  when  it  ' '  flares  forth  into  the  dark  ?  " 

195 


THE  THREE-HEADED   EVIL  THING.— I. 

The  heart  is  deceitful  above  all  ihingSy  and  it  is  desperately  sick  :  who 
can  know  it? — Jer.  xvii.  9. 

I  was  going  to  use  an  inappropriate  word,  and  say,  the  superb 

^     '    ease  with  which  Christ  grappled  with,  and  overcame,  all  types  of 

disease  is  a  revelation  on  a  lower  level  of  the  inexhaustible  and  all -sufficient 

fulness  of  His  healing  power.    He  can  cope  with  all  sin,  the  world's  sin  and 

the  individual's.     And,  as  I  believe.  He  alone  can  do  it. 

Just  look  at  the  problem  that  lies  before  any  one  who  attempts  to  staunch 
these  wounds  of  humanity.  What  is  needed  in  order  to  deliver  men  from 
the  sickness  of  sin?  Well !  that  evil  thing,  like  the  fabled  dog  that  sits  at 
the  gate  of  the  infernal  regions,  is  three-headed.  And  you  have  to  do  some- 
thing with  each  of  these  heads  if  you  are  to  deliver  men  from  that  power. 

There  is,  first,  the  awful  power  that  evil  once  done  has  over  us  of 
repeating  itself  on  and  on.  There  is  nothing  more  dreadful,  to  a  reflective 
mind,  than  the  damning  influence  of  habit.  The  man  that  has  done  some 
wrong  thing  once  is  a  i-ara  avis  indeed.  If  once,  then  twice  ;  if  twice, 
then  onward  and  onward  through  all  the  numbers.  And  the  intervals 
between  will  grow  less,  and  what  were  isolated  points  will  coalesce  into  a 
line  ;  and  impulses  wax  as  motives  wane,  and  the  less  delight  a  man  has  in 
his  habitual  form  of  evil  the  more  its  dominion  over  him  ;  and  he  does  it  at 
last,  not  because  the  doing  of  it  is  any  delight,  but  because  the  jwf  doing  of 
it  is  a  misery.  If  you  are  to  get  rid  of  sin  and  to  eject  the  disease  from  a 
man,  you  have  to  deal  with  that  awful  degradation  of  character  and  the 
tremendous  chains  of  custom.     That  is  one  of  the  heads  of  the  monster. 

But,  as  I  said,  sin  has  reference  to  God,  and  there  is  another  of  the 
heads.  For  with  sin  comes  guilt.  The  relation  to  God  is  perverted  ;  and 
the  man  that  has  transgressed  stands  before  Him  as  guilty,  with  all  the 
dolefulness  that  that  solemn  word  means  ;   and  that  is  another  of  the  heads. 

The  third  is  this— the  consequences  that  follow  in  the  nature  of  penalty — 
**  Whatsoever  a  man  soweth,  that  shall  he  also  reap."  So  long  as  there  is 
a  universal  rule  by  God,  in  which  all  things  are  concatenated  by  cause  and 
effect,  it  is  impossil^le  but  that  "  Evil  shall  slay  the  wicked."  And  that  is 
the  third  head.  These  three,  habit,  guilt,  and  penalty,  have  all  to  be  dealt 
with  if  you  are  going  to  make  a  thorough  job  of  the  surgery. 

And  here  I  want  not  to  argue,  but  to  preach.  Jesus  Christ  died  on  the 
Cross  for  you,  and  your  sin  was  in  His  heart  and  mind  when  He  died,  and 
His  atoning  sacrifice  cancels  the  guilt,  and  suspends  all  that  is  dreadful  in  the 
penalty  of  the  sin.  Nothing  else — nothing  else  will  do  that.  Who  can 
deal  with  guilt  but  the  offended  Ruler  and  Judge?  Who  can  trammel  up 
consequences  but  the  Lord  of  the  Universe  ?  The  blood  of  Jesus  Christ 
is  the  sole  and  sufficient  oblation  for,  and  satisfaction  for,  the  sins  of  the 
whole  world. 

196 


THE  THREE-HEADED  EVIL  THING.— II. 

The  sin  of  Judah  is  written  with  a  pen  of  iron,  and  voith  the  point  of  a 
diamond :   it  is  graven  upon  the  table  of  their  heart. — Jer.  xvii.  I. 

Two  of  the  monster's  heads  are  disposed  of.     What  about  the 
Jiily  15. 

third  ?    Who  will  take  the  venom  out  of  my  nature  ?    What  will 

express  the  black  drop  from  my  heart  ?  How  shall  the  Ethiopian  change 
his  skin  or  the  leopard  his  spots?  How  can  the  man  that  has  become 
habituated  to  evil  *'  learn  to  do  well "  ?  Superficially  there  may  be  much 
reformation.  God  forbid  that  I  should  forget  that,  or  seem  to  minimise  it. 
But  for  the  thorough  rejection  from  your  nature  of  the  corruption  that  you 
have  yourself  brought  into  it,  I  believe — and  that  is  why  I  am.  here,  for  I 
should  have  nothing  to  say  if  I  did  not  believe  it — I  believe  that  there  is 
only  one  remedy,  and  that  is  that  into  the  sinful  heart  there  should  come, 
rejoicing  and  flashing,  and  bearing  on  its  broad  bosom  before  it,  all  the 
rubbish  and  filth  of  that  dunghill,  the  great  stream  of  the  new  hfe  that  is 
given  by  Jesus  Christ.  He  was  crucified  for  our  offences,  and  He  lives  to 
bestow  upon  us  the  fulness  of  His  own  holiness.  So  the  monster's  heads 
are  smitten  off.  Our  disease  and  the  tendency  to  it,  and  the  weakness  con- 
sequent upon  it,  are  all  cast  out  from  us,  and  He  reveals  Himself  as  "the 
Lord  who  healeth  thee." 

Now,  you  may  say  "  That  is  all  very  fine  talking."  Yes  !  but  it  is  some- 
thing a  great  deal  more  than  fine  talking.  For  eighteen  centuries  have 
established  the  fact  that  it  is  so  ;  and  with  all  their  imperfections  there  have 
been  millions,  and  there  are  millions  to-day,  who  are  ready  to  say, 
•'  Behold  !  it  is  not  a  delusion  ;  it  is  not  rhetoric.  /  have  trusted  in  Him, 
and  He  has  made  me  whole." 

Now,  if  these  things  that  I  have  been  saying  do  fairly  represent  the 
gravity  of  the  problem  which  has  to  be  dealt  v/ith  in  order  to  heal  the  sick- 
nesses of  the  world,  then  there  is  no  need  to  dwell  upon  the  thought  of  how 
absolutely  confined  to  Jesus  Christ  is  the  power  of  thus  deahng.  God 
forbid  that  I  should  not  give  full  weight  to  all  other  methods  for  partial 
reformation  and  bettering  of  humanit}-.  I  would  wish  them  all  God-speed. 
But  there  is  nothing  else  that  will  deal  either  with  my  sin  in  its  relation 
to  God,  or  in  its  relation  to  my  character,  or  in  its  relation  to  my  future, 
except  the  message  of  the  Gospel.  There  are  plenty  of  other  things,  very 
helpful  and  good  in  their  places,  but  I  do  want  to  say  in  one  word  that 
there  is  nothing  else  that  goes  deep  enough. 

197 


HUMAN  REMEDIES  FOR  SIN  UNAVAILING. 

Though  thou  wash  thee  with  lye,  and  take  thee  much  soap,  yet  thini 
iniquity  is  tnarked  before  me,  saith  the  Lord  God. — Jer.  ii.  22. 

Education  ?     Yes  !  it  will  do  a  great  deal,  but  it  will  do  nothing 
July  16. 

in  regard  of  sin.     It  will  alter  the  type  of  the  disease,  because  the 

cultured  man's  trangressions  will  be  very  different  from  those  of  the  illiterate 
boor.  But  wise  or  foolish,  professor,  student,  thinker,  or  savage  with 
narrow  forehead  and  all  but  d§ad  brain,  are  alike  in  this,  that  they  are 
sinners  in  God's  sight.  I  would  that  I  could  get  through  the  fence  that 
some  of  you  have  reared  round  you,  on  the  ground  of  your  superior  enlighten- 
ment and  education  and  refinement,  and  make  you  feel  that  there  is 
something  deeper  than  all  that,  and  that  you  may  be  a  very  clever,  and  a 
very  well  educated,  a  very  highly  cultured,  an  extremely  thoughtful  and 
philosophical  sinner,  but  you  are  a  sinner  all  the  same. 

Again,  we  hear  a  great  deal  at  present,  and  I  do  not  desire  that  we  should 
hear  less,  about  social  and  economic  and  political  changes,  which  some  eager 
enthusiasts  suppose  will  bring  the  millennium.  Well,  if  the  land  were  nation- 
ahsed,  and  all  "  the  means  of  production  and  distribution  "  were  nationalised, 
and  everybody  got  his  share,  and  we  were  all  brought  to  the  communistic 
condition,  what  then  ?  That  would  not  make  men  better,  in  the  deepest 
sense  of  the  word.  The  fact  is,  these  people  are  beginning  at  the  wrong 
end.  You  cannot  better  humanity  merely  by  altering  its  environment 
for  the  better.  Christianity  reverses  the  process.  It  begins  with  the  inmost 
man,  and  it  works  outwards  to  the  circumference  ;  and  that  is  the  thorough 
way.  Why  !  suppose  you  took  a  company  of  people  out  of  the  slums,  for 
instance,  and  put  them  into  a  model  lodging-house,  how  long  will  it  continue 
a  model  ?  They  will  take  their  dirty  habits  with  them,  and  pull  down  the 
woodwork  for  firing,  and  make  the  place  where  they  are  as  like  as  possible 
to  the  hovel  whence  they  came  in  a  very  short  time.  You  must  change 
the  men,  and  then  you  can  change  their  circumstances,  or,  rather,  they  will 
change  them  for  themselves.  Now,  all  this  is  not  to  be  taken  as  casting 
cold  water  on  any  such  efforts  to  improve  matters,  but  only  as  a  protest 
against  its  being  supposed  that  these  alo7ie  are  sufficient  to  rectify  the  ills 
and  cure  the  sorrows  of  humanity.  *'  Ye  have  healed  the  hurt  of  the 
daughter  of  My  people  slightly."  The  patient  is  dying  of  cancer,  and  you 
are  treating  him  for  a  skin  disease.  It  is  Jesus  Christ  alone  that  can  cure 
the  sins,  and  so  the  sorrows,  of  humanity. 

198 


THE  LORD  THAT  HEALETH  THEE. 

/  ant  the  Lord  that  healeih  thee. — Exod.  xv.  26. 

The:n  that  had  need  of  healing  He  healed. — Luke  ix.  II. 

_  ,  ._  All  the  sick  in  the  crowd  round  Christ  were  sent  away  well  ; 
^•^  *  but  the  gifts  He  bestowed  so  broadcast  had  no  relation  to  their 
spiritual  natures,  and  gifts  that  have  relation  to  our  spiritual  nature  cannot 
be  thus  given  in  entire  disregard  of  our  actions  in  the  matter. 

Christ  cannot  heal  you  unless  you  take  His  healing  power.  He  did 
on  earth  sometimes,  though  not  often,  cure  physical  disease  without  the 
requirement  of  faith  on  the  part  of  the  healed  person  or  his  friends,  but 
He  cannot  (He  would  if  He  could)  do  so  in  regard  of  the  disease  of  sin. 
There,  unless  a  man  goes  to  Him  and  trusts  Flim,  and  submits  his  spirit 
to  the  operation  of  Christ's  pardoning  and  hallowing  grace,  there  cannot 
be  any  remedy  applied,  nor  any  cure  effected.  That  is  no  Hmitation  of  the 
universal  power  of  the  Gospel.  It  is  only  saying  that  if  you  do  not  take 
the  medicine  you  cannot  expect  that  it  will  do  you  any  good.  And  surely 
that  is  plain,  common  sense.  There  are  plenty  of  people  who  fancy  that 
Christ's  healing  and  saving  power  will,  somehow  or  other,  reach  all 
men,  apart  from  the  man's  act.  It  is  all  a  delusion.  If  it  could,  it 
would.  But  if  salvation  could  be  thus  given,  independent  of  the  man, 
it  would  come  down  to  a  mere  mechanical  thing,  and  would  not  be  worth 
the  having.  So  I  say,  if  you  will  not  take  the  medicine,  you  cannot  get 
the  cure. 

I  say,  further,  if  you  do  not  feel  that  you  are  ill  you  will  not  take  the 
medicine.  A  man  crippled  with  lameness,  or  tortured  with  fever,  or 
groping  in  the  daylight  and  blind,  or  deaf  to  all  the  sounds  of  this  sweet 
world,  could  not  but  know  that  he  was  a  subject  for  the  healing.  But 
the  awful  thing  about  our  disease  is  that  the  worse  you  are  the  less  you 
know  it  ;  and  that  when  conscience  ought  to  be  speaking  loudest  it  is 
quieted  altogether,  and  leaves  a  man  often  perfectly  at  peace,  so  that  after 
he  has  done  evil  things  he  wipes  his  mouth  and  says,  "  I  have  done 
no  '  harm.' "  Do  not  be  contented  until  you  have  recognised  what  is  true, 
that  you — you,  stand  a  sinful  man  before  God. 

There  is  surely  no  madness  comparable  to  the  madness  of  the  man  that 
prefers  to  keep  his  sin  and  die  rather  than  go  to  Christ  and  live.  Will 
you  look  into  your  own  heart?  Will  you  recognise  that  awful  solemn 
law  of  God,  which  ought  to  regulate  all  our  doings,  and,  alas  !  has  been 
so  often  neglected  and  so  often  transgressed  by  each  of  us  ?  Oh  !  if  once 
you  saw  yourself  as  you  are,  you  would  turn  to  Him  and  say,  "  Heal 
me"  ;  and  you  would  be  healed,  and  He  would  lay  His  hand  upon  you. 
If  only  you  will  go,  sick  and  broken,  to  Him,  and  trust  in  His  great 
sacrifice,  and  open  your  hearts  to  the  influx  of  His  healing  power,  He  v/ill 
give  you  "perfect  soundness"  ;  and  your  song  will  be,  "Bless  the  Lord, 
O  my  soul.  .  .  .  Who  forgiveth  all  thine  iniquities  ;  who  healeth  thy 
diseases." 

199 


SEEKING   AND   FINDING. 

/  will  seek  that  whicJi  was  lost,  and  will  bring  again  that  which  was 
driven  awayT — Ezek.  xxxiv.  1 6. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  finding.  There  is  the  casual  stumbling 
^  *  upon  a  thing  that  you  were  not  looking  for,  and  there  is  the 
finding  as  the  result  of  seeking.  It  is  the  latter  kind  that  is  here.  Clirist 
did  not  casually  stumble  upon  Philip,  upon  that  morning,  before  they  de- 
parted from  the  fords  of  the  Jor,  an  on  their  short  journey  to  Cana  of  Galilee. 
He  went  to  look  for  another  Galilean,  one  who  was  connected  with  Andrew 
and  Peter,  a  native  of  the  same  village.  He  went  and  found  him  ;  and 
whilst  Philip  was  all  unexpectant  and  undesirous,  the  Master  comes  to 
him  and  lays  His  hand  upon  him,  and  draws  him  to  Himself. 

Now  I  say  that  is  what  Christ  often  does  with  people.  There  are  men 
like  "  the  merchantman  that  went  all  over  the  world  seeking  goodly 
pearls,"  who,  with  some  eager  longing  to  possess  light,  or  truth,  or  good- 
ness, or  rest,  search  up  and  down  and  find  it  nowhere,  because  they  arc 
looking  for  it  in  a  hundred  different  places.  They  are  expecting  to  find 
a  little  here  and  a  little  there,  and  so  piece  it  all  together,  and  make  of  the 
fragments  one  all-sufficing  restfulness.  Then,  when  perhaps  they  are  most 
eager  in  their  search,  or,  when  perhaps  it  has  all  died  down  into  despair 
and  apathy,  the  veil  seems  to  be  witlidrawn,  and  they  see  Him  whom 
they  have  been  seeking  all  the  time  and  knew  not  that  Pie  was  there  beside 
them.  All,  and  more  than  all,  that  they  sought  for  in  the  many  pearls 
is  stored  for  them  in  the  one  Pearl  of  great  price.  The  ancient  covenant 
stands  firm  to-day  as  for  ever.  "  Seek,  and  ye  shall  find  ;  knock,  and  it 
shall  be  opened  unto  you." 

But  then  there  are  others,  like  Paul  on  the  road  to  Damascus  ;  like 
Matthew,  the  pubhcan,  sitting  at  the  receipt  of  custom,  on  whom  there 
is  laid  a  sudden  hand,  to  whom  there  comes  a  sudden  conviction,  on  whose 
eyes,  not  looking  to  the  east,  there  dawns  the  light  of  Christ's  presence. 
Such  cases  occur  all  through  the  ages,  for  He  is  not  going  to  be  confined  — 
bless  His  Name  ! — within  the  narrow  limits  of  answering,  seeking  souls,  and 
showing  Himself  to  people  that  are  brought  to  Him  by  human  instru- 
mentality ;  but  far  beyond  these  bounds  He  goes,  and  many  a  time  discloses 
His  beauty  and  His  sweetness  to  hearts  that  wist  not  of  Him,  and  who 
can  only  say,  **  Lo  !  God  was  in  this  place,  and  I  knew  it  not."  **Thou 
wast  found  of  them  that  sought  T^^ee  nt^t." 

200 


THE  SEEKING  CHRIST. 

On  the  morrow,  He  was  minded  to  go  forth  into  Galilee,  and  He 
findeth  Philip  ;  and  Jesus  said  unto  hint,  Follow  Me. — John  i.  43. 

J  1    19     "Jesus  findeth  Philip,"  who  was  not  seeking  Jesus,  and  who 

™^  *  was  brought  by  nobody.  To  him  Christ  reveals  Himself  as 
drawing  near  to  many  a  heart  that  has  not  thought  of  Him,  and  laying 
a  masterful  hand  of  gracious  authority  on  the  springs  of  hfe  and  character 
in  that  autocratic  word,  "  Follow  Me  !  "  So  we  have  a  gradual  heightening 
revelation  of  the  Master's  graciousness  to  all  souls,  to  them  that  seek 
and  to  them  that  seek  Him  not.     It  is  a  revelation  of  the  seeking  Christ. 

Everybody  that  reads  this  chapter  (John  i.)  with  even  the  slightest 
attention  must  observe  how  "seeking"  and  "finding"  are  repeated  over 
and  over  again.  Christ  turns  to  Andrew  and  John  with  the  question, 
"What  seek  ye?"  Andrew,  as  the  narrative  says,  '•''findeth  his  own 
brother,  Simon,  and  saith  unto  him,  "We  h?i\Q  foimd  the  Messias!'" 
Then,  again,  ^qsm^  finds  Phihp  ;  and  again,  Phihp,  as  soon  as  he  has  been 
won  to  Jesus,  goes  off  iofiind  Nathaniel ;  and  his  glad  word  to  him  is,  once 
more,  "We  have  fonnd  the  Messias."  It  is  a  reciprocal  play  of  finding 
and  seeking  all  through  these  verses. 

As  it  was  in  His  miracles  upon  earth,  so  it  has  been  in  the  sweet  and 
gracious  works  of  His  grace  ever  since.  Sometimes  He  healed  in  response 
to  the  yearning  desire  that  looked  out  of  sick  eyes  or  that  spoke  from 
parched  lips.  And  no  man  that  ever  came  to  Him  and  said,  "  Heal  me  !  " 
was  sent  away  beggared  of  His  blessing.  Sometimes  He  healed  in  response 
to  the  beseeching  of  those  who,  with  loving  hearts,  carried  their  dear  ones 
and  laid  them  at  His  feet.  But  sometimes,  to  magnify  the  spontaneity 
and  the  completeness  of  His  own  love,  and  to  show  us  that  He  is  bound 
and  limited  by  no  human  co-operation,  and  that  He  is  His  own  motive, 
sometimes  He  reached  out  the  blessing  to  a  hand  that  was  not  extended 
to  grasp  it ;  and  by  His  question,  "Wilt  thou  be  made  whole?"  kindled 
desires  that  else  had  lain  dormant  for  ever. 

And  so  in  this  story  before  us  :  He  will  welcome  and  ever  answer 
Andrew  and  John  when  they  come  seeking ;  He  will  turn  round  to  them 
with  a  smile  on  His  face,  that  converts  the  question,  "What  seek  ye?" 
into  an  invitation,  "Come  and  see."  And  when  Andrew  brings  his 
brother  to  Him,  He  will  go  more  than  half-way  to  meet  him.  But  when 
these  are  won  there  still  remains  another  way  by  which  He  will  have 
disciples  brought  into  His  Kingdom,  and  that  is  by  Himself  going  out  and 
laying  His  hand  on  the  man  and  drawing  Him  to  His  heart  by  the  revelation 
of  His  own.  But  He  really  is  seeking  us  all,  whether  through  human 
agencies  or  not ;  whether  our  hearts  are  seeking  Him  or  not,  still  in 
deepest  truth.  There  is  no  heart  upon  earth  which  Christ  does  not  desire, 
and  no  man  or  woman  within  the  sound  of  His  Gospel  whom  He  really 
is  not — in  no  metaphorical,  but  in  a  simple,  literal,  prosaic  sense — seeking 
that  He  may  draw  them  to  Himself. 

201 


CiiiUSrS  UiSiSOUGHT  LOVE. 

I  am  found  of  them  that  sought  Me  not. — Isa.  Ixv.  I. 

Christ's  own  word  is  a  wonderful  one  :  "The  Father  seckelh  such 
to  worship  Him  "  ;  as  if  God  went  all  up  and  down  the  world 
looking  for  hearts  to  love  Him  and  to  turn  to  Him  with  reverent  thank- 
fulness. And  as  the  Father,  so  the  Son — for  us  the  "revelation  of  the 
Father:  "The  Son  of  Man  is  come  to  seek  and  to  save  that  which  was 
lost."  Nobody  on  earth  wanted  Him,  or  dreamed  of  His  coming.  When 
He  bowed  the  heavens  and  gathered  Himself  into  the  narrow  space  of  the 
manger  in  Bethlehem,  and  took  upon  Him  the  limitations  and  the  burdens 
and  the  weaknesses  of  manhood,  it  was  not  in  response  to  any  petition,  it  was 
in  reply  to  no  seeking,  but  He  came  spontaneously,  unmoved,  obeying  but 
the  impulse  of  His  own  heart,  and  because  He  would  have  mercy.  He 
who  is  the  Beginning,  and  will  be  first  in  all  things,  was  first  in  this. 
"Before  they  call  I  will  answer," — and  came  upon  earth  unbesought  and 
unexpected,  because  His  own  infinite  love  brought  Him  hither.  Christ's 
mercy  to  a  world  does  not  come  like  water  in  a  well  that  has  to  be  pumped 
up,  by  our  petitions,  by  our  search,  but  like  water  in  some  fountain,  rising 
sparkling  into  the  sunlight  by  its  own  inward  impulse.  He  is  His  own 
motive  ;  and  came  to  a  forgetful  and  careless  world,  like  a  shepherd  who 
goes  after  his  flock  in  the  wilderness,  not  because  they  bleat  for  him,  since 
they  crop  the  herbage  which  tempts  them  even  further  from  the  fold  and 
remember  him  or  it  no  more,  but  because  he  cannot  have  them  lost.  Men 
are  not  conscious  of  needing  Christ  till  He  comes.  The  supply  creates  the 
demand.  He  is  like  the  "dew  which  tarrieth  not  for  man,  nor  waiteth 
for  the  sons  of  men."  But  not  only  does  Christ  seek  us  all  inasmuch  as  the 
whole  conception  and  execution  of  His  great  work  are  independent  of  man's 
desires,  but  He  seeks  us  each  in  a  thousand  ways.  He  longs  to  have  each 
of  us  for  His  disciples.  He  seeks  each  of  us  for  His  disciples,  by  the 
motion  of  His  Spirit  on  our  spirits,  by  stirring  convictions  on  our  consciences, 
by  pricking  us  often  with  a  sense  of  our  own  evil,  by  all  our  restlessness 
and  dissatisfaction,  by  the  disappointments  and  the  losses,  as  by  the  bright- 
nesses and  the  goodness  of  earthly  providences,  and  often  through  such  poor 
agencies  as  my  lips  and  the  lips  of  other  men.  The  Master  Himself,  who 
seeks  all  mankind,  has  sought  and  is  seeking  you  at  this  moment.  Oh  !  you 
yield  to  His  search.  The  shepherd  goes  out  on  the  mountain  side,  for  all 
the  storms  and  the  snow,  and  wades  knee-deep  through  the  drifts  until  he 
finds  the  sheep.  And  your  Shepherd,  who  is  also  your  Brother,  has  come 
looking  for  you,  and  at  this  moment  is  putting  out  His  hand  and  laying 
hold  of  you  through  my  poor  words,  and  saying  to  you,  as  He  said  to 
Philip,  "  Follow  Me  !  " 

702 


"FOLLOW  ME.'* 

And  He  saiih,  Come  ye  after  Me,  and  I  will  make  you  fishers  of  men, 

Matt.  iv.  19. 

July  21  "J^sus  findeth  Philip,  and  saith  unto  him,  'Follow  Me  !'"  No 
'  doubt  there  was  a  great  deal  more  passed,  but  no  doubt  what 
more  passed  was  less  significant  and  less  important  for  the  development  of 
faith  in  this  man  than  what  is  recorded.  The  word  of  authority,  the  invitation 
which  was  a  demand,  the  demand  which  was  an  invitation,  and  the  personal 
impression  which  He  produced  upon  Philip's  heart,  were  the  things  that 
bound  him  to  Jesus  Christ  for  ever.  "Follow  Me,"  spoken  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  journey  of  Christ  and  His  disciples  back  to  Galilee,  so  might 
have  meant  merely,  on  the  surface,  "Come  with  us  on  our  return."  But 
they  have,  of  course,  a  much  deeper  meaning.  They  mean,  Be  My  disciple. 
Think  what  is  implied  in  them,  and  ask  yourself  whether  the  dem.and  that 
Christ  makes  in  these  words  is  an  unreasonable  one,  and  then  ask  yourself 
whether  you  have  yielded  to  it  or  not.  "  Follow  Me  !  "  We  lose  the  force 
of  the  image  by  much  repetition.  Think  of  what  it  implies.  Sheep  follow 
a  shepherd  ;  travellers  follow  a  guide.  Here  is  a  man  upon  some  dangerous 
cornice  of  the  Alps,  with  a  bit  of  limestone  as  broad  as  the  palm  of  your 
hand  for  him  to  pick  his  steps  upon,  and  perhaps  a  couple  of  feet  of  snow 
above  that  for  him  to  walk  upon,  a  precipice  of  two  thousand  feet  on  either  side. 
And  his  guide  says,  as  he  ropes  himself  to  him,  "Now,  look  here  !  You 
tread  where  I  tread?"  Jesus  said  to  Phihp,  "Follow  Me  !"  Travellers 
follow  their  guides,  soldiers  follow  their  commanders.  There  is  the  hell  of 
the  battlefield  ;  here  a  line  of  wavering,  timid,  raw  recruits.  Their  com- 
mander rushes  to  the  front,  and  throws  himself  upon  the  advancing  enemy 
with  the  one  word,  ' '  Follow  ! "  And  the  weakest  becomes  a  hero.  Soldiers 
follow  their  captains. 

Your  Shepherd  comes  to  you  and  calls,  "  Follow  Me  ! "  Your  Captain 
and  Commander  comes  to  you  and  calls,  "  Follow  Me  ! "  In  all  the  dreary 
wilderness,  in  all  the  difficult  contingencies  and  conjunctions,  in  all  the 
conflicts  of  life,  this  Man  strides  in  front  of  us  and  proposes  Himself  to  us 
a  Guide,  Example,  Consoler,  Friend,  Companion,  everything ;  and  gathers 
up  all  duty,  all  blessedness,  in  the  majestic  and  simple  words,  "  Follow 
Me  ! " 

What  business  has  Jesus  Christ  to  ask  me  to  follow  Him?  Why  should 
I?  Who  is  He  that  would  set  Himself  up  as  being  the  perfect  Example  and 
the  Guide  for  all  the  world  ?  What  has  He  done  to  bind  me  to  Him,  that 
I  should  take  Him  for  my  Master,  and  yield  myself  up  to  Him  in  a 
subjection  that  I  refuse  to  the  mightiest  names  in  hterature  and  thought 
and  practical  benevolence  ?  Who  is  this  that  is  thus  going  to  dominate  over 
us  all?  Ah,  brother  !  there  is  only  one  answer.  " This  is  none  other  than 
the  Son  of  God,  who  has  given  Himself  a  ransom  for  me,  and  therefore 
has  the  right,  and  therefore  only  has  the  right,  to  say  to  me,  'Follow 
Me  ! '" 

203 


A  CALL  TO   FAITFI   AND   OBEDIENCE. 

Jf  any  man  serve  Me,  let  hint  follow  Me ;  and  where  I  am,  there  shall 
also  My  servant  be. — John  xii.  26. 

From  the  beginning  Christ's  disciples  did  not  look  upon  Him 
^  '  as  a  Rabbi's  disciples  did,  as  being  simply  a  teacher,  but 
recognised  Him  as  the  Messias,  the  Son  of  God,  the  King  of  Israel.  So 
that  they  were  called  upon  by  His  commands  to  accept  His  teaching  in 
a  very  special  way,  not  merely  as  Rittel  or  Gamaliel  asked  their  disciples 
to  accept  theirs.  Do  you  do  that  ?  Do  you  take  Him  as  your  illumination 
about  all  matters  of  theoretical  truth  and  of  practical  wisdom?  Is  His 
declaration  of  God  your  theology  ?  Is  His  declaration  of  His  own  Person 
your  creed  ?  Do  you  think  about  His  Cross  as  He  did  when  He  elected  to 
be  remembered  in  all  the  world  by  the  broken  body  and  the  shed  blood, 
which  were  the  symbols  of  His  reconciling  death  ?  Is  His  teaching,  that 
the  Son  of  Man  comes  to  give  His  life  a  ransom  for  many,  the  ground  of 
your  hope  ?  Do  you  follow  Him  in  your  belief,  and  following  Him  in  your 
belief,  do  you  accept  Him  as  the  Saviour  of  your  soul,  by  His  death  and 
passion  ?  That  is  the  first  step,  to  follow  Him,  to  trust  Him  wholly  for 
what  He  is,  the  Incarnate  Son  of  God,  the  Sacrifice  for  the  sins  of  the 
whole  world,  and  therefore  for  yours  and  for  mine.  This  is  a  call  to  faith. 
It  is  also  a  call  to  obedience.  *'  Follow  Me  ! "  certainly  means,  "  Do  as 
I  bid  you "  ;  but  that  is  harsh.  Sedulously  plant  your  little  feet  in  His 
firm  footsteps  ;  where  you  see  His  track  going  across  the  bog,  be  not  afraid 
to  walk  after  Him,  though  it  may  seem  to  lead  you  into  the  deepest  and 
the  blackest  of  it.  Follow  Him,  and  you  will  be  right ;  follow  Flim, 
and  you  will  be  blessed.  Do  as  Cnrist  did,  or  as  according  to  the  best  of 
your  judgment  it  seems  to  you  that  Christ  would  have  done  if  He  had 
Deen  in  your  circumstances;  and  you  will  not  go  far  wrong.  "The 
Imitation  of  Christ,"  which  the  old  anonymous  monk  wrote  his  book 
about,  is  the  sum  of  all  practical  Christianity.  "Follow  Me!"  makes 
discipleship  to  be  something  better  than  intellectual  acceptance  of  His 
teaching,  something  more  than  even  reliance  for  my  salvation  upon  Flis 
work.  It  makes  discipleship  to  be,  springing  out  of  these  two,  the 
acceptance  of  His  teaching  and  the  consequent  reliance,  by  faith,  upon 
His  word — to  be  a  practical  reproduction  of  His  character  and  conduct 
in  mine. 

It  is  a  call  to  communion.  If  a  man  follows  Christ  he  will  walk  close 
behind  Him,  and  near  enough  to  Him  to  hear  Him  speak,  to  be  "guided 
by  His  eye."  He  will  be  separated  from  other  people  and  from  other 
things.  In  these  four  things,  then — Faith,  Obedience,  Imitation,  Com- 
munion— lies  the  essence  of  discipleship.  No  man  is  a  Christian  who  has 
not  in  some  measure  all  four.     Have  you  got  them  ? 

204 


HESITATING  TO  FOLLOW  CHRIST. 
And  they  that  followed  Him  were  afraid. — Mark  x.  32. 

T  1  23  Quickly  a  soul  may  be  won  or  lost !  That  moment,  when  Philip's 
decision  was  trembling  in  the  balance,  was  but  a  moment.  It 
might  have  gone  the  other  way,  for  Christ  has  no  pressed  men  in  His  army; 
they  are  all  volunteers.  It  might  have  gone  the  other  way.  A  moment 
may  settle  for  you  whether  you  will  be  His  disciple  or  not.  People  tell  us 
that  the  belief  in  instantaneous  conversions  is  unphilosophical ;  it  seems 
to  me  that  the  objections  to  them  are  unphilosophical.  All  decisions  are 
matters  of  an  instant.  Hesitation  may  be  long,  weighing  and  balancing 
may  be  a  protracted  process  ;  but  the  decision  is  always  a  moment's  work, 
a  knife-edge.  And  there  is  no  reason  whatever  why  any  one  may  not  now, 
if  they  will,  do  as  Philip  did,  on  the  spot ;  and  when  Christ  says,  "  P^ollow 
Me,"  return  to  Him  and  answer,  "I  follow  Thee  whithersoever  Thou 
goest." 

There  is  an  old  Church  tradition  which  says  that  the  disciple  who,  at  a 
subsequent  period,  answered  Christ,  '*  Lord,  suffer  me  first  to  go  and  bury 
my  father,"  was  this  same  Apostle.  I  do  not  think  that  it  is  at  all  likely, 
but  the  tradition  suggests  to  us  one  thought  about  the  reasons  why 
people  are  kept  back  from  yielding  this  obedience  to  Christ's  invitation. 
Many  are  kept  back,  as  that  man  in  the  story  was,  because  there  are 
some  other  duties,  and  they  are  duties,  no  doubt,  which  you  feel  or  make 
to  be  more  important.  "  I  will  think  about  Christianity  and  about  turning 
religious  when  this,  that,  or  the  other  thing  has  got  over.  I  have  my 
position  in  life  to  make.  I  have  a  great  many  things  to  do  that  must  be 
done  at  once,  and  really  I  have  not  time  to  think  about  it." 

Then  there  are  some  that  are  kept  from  following  Christ  because  they 
have  never  found  out  yet  that  they  need  a  guide  at  all.  Then  there  are 
some  that  are  kept  back  because  they  like  very  much  better  to  go  their 
own  way  and  to  follow  their  own  inclination,  and  dislike  the  idea  of  following 
the  will  of  another. 

There  are  a  host  of  other  reasons,  but  they  are  all  not  worth  looking  at. 
They  are  excuses,  they  are  not  reasons.  "  They  all  with  one  consent  began 
to  make  excuse."  Excuses,  not  reasons  ;  and  manufactured  excuses,  in 
order  to  cover  a  decision  which  has  been  taken  before,  and  on  other  grounds 
altogether,  which  it  is  not  convenient  to  bring  up  to  the  surface  ! 

Follow  Him  !  Trust,  obey,  imitate,  hold  fellowship  with  Him.  You 
will  always  have  a  Companion,  you  will  always  have  a  Protector.  "  He 
that  followeth  Me,"  saith  He,  "  shall  not  walk  in  darkness,  but  shall  have 
the  light  of  life."  And  if  you  will  listen  to  the  Shepherd's  voice  and 
follow  Him,  that  sweet  old  promise  will  be  true,  in  its  deepest  and  Divinest 
sense  about  your  Hfe,  in  time ;  and  your  life  in  the  moment  of  death,  the 
isthmus  between  two  worlds  ;  and  about  your  life  in  eternity.  "  They  shall 
not  hunger  nor  thirst,  neither  shall  the  sun  nor  heat  smite  them ;  for  He 
that  hath  mercy  on  them  shall  lead  them,  by  the  springs  of  water  shall  He 
guide  them."     Follow  thou  Me  ! 

205 


THE  ANTIDOTE  TO  ALL  DESPONDENCY. 

Hast  thou  not  knoivn  ?  hast  thou  not  heard  ?  The  Everlasting  God, 
the  Lord,  the  Creator  of  the  ends  of  the  earthy  fainteth  not,  neither  is  weary. — 
IsA.  xl.  28. 

Here  is  an  appeal  to  the  familiar  theught  of  an  unchangeable 
July  4.  Q^^  ^g  ^1^^  antidote  to  all  despondency  and  the  foundation  of  all 
hope.  To  whom  is  the  prophet  speaking  ?  The  words  of  the  previous  verse 
tell  us,  in  which  he  addresses  himself  to  Jacob,  or  Israel,  who  is  represented 
as  complaining,  "My  way  is  hid  from  the  Lord."  That  is  to  say,  he 
speaks  to  the  believing,  but  despondent,  part  of  the  exiles  in  Babylon  ;  and 
to  them  He  comes  with  this  vehement  question,  which  implies  that  they 
were  in  danger,  in  their  despondency,  of  practically  forgetting  the  great 
thought.  There  is  wonder  in  the  question,  there  is  a  tinge  of  rebuke  in 
it,  and  there  is  distinctly  imphed  this :  that  whensoever  there  steals  over 
our  spirits  despondency  or  perplexity  about  our  own  individual  history,  or 
about  the  peace  and  the  fortunes  of  the  Church  or  the  world,  the  one 
sovereign  antidote  against  gloom  and  low  spirits,  and  the  one  secret  of 
unbroken  cheer  and  confidence  is  to  hft  our  eyes  to  the  unwearied  God. 

The  Hfe  of  men  and  of  creatures  is  like  a  river,  with  its  source  and  its 
course  and  its  end.  The  life  of  God  is  like  the  ocean,  with  joyous  move- 
ment of  tides  and  currents  of  life  and  energy  and  purpose,  but  ever  the 
same,  and  ever  returning  upon  itself.  "The  Everlasting  God  "  is  "the 
Lord,"  and  Jehovah  the  Unchanged,  Unchangeable,  Inexhaustible  Being, 
spends,  and  is  unspent ;  gives,  and  is  none  the  poorer  ;  works,  and  is  never 
wearied  ;  lives,  and  with  no  tendency  to  death  in  His  life  ;  flames,  with  no 
tendency  to  extinction  in  the  blaze.  The  bush  burned  and  was  not  con- 
sumed :  "  He  fainteth  not,  neither  is  weary." 

The  prophet  takes  his  stand  upon  the  most  elementary  truths  of  religion. 
His  appeal  to  them  is  :  "  What  do  you  call  God  ?  You  call  Him  the  Lord, 
do  you  not  ?  What  do  you  mean  by  calling  Him  that  ?  Do  you  ever  ask 
yourselves  that  question  ?  You  mean  this,  if  you  mean  anything :  *  He 
fainteth  not,  neither  is  wearied.'"  "Jehovah"  is  interpreted  from  the  lips 
of  God  Himself:  "  I  Am  that  I  Am."  That  is  the  expression  of  what 
metaphysicians  call  absolute,  underived,  eternal  Being,  limited  and  shaped 
and  determined  by  none  else,  flowing  from  none  else  ;  eternal,  hfted  up 
above  the  fashions  of  time.  Of  Him  men  cannot  say  "  He  was  "  or  "  He 
will  be,"  but  only  "He  is" — by  Himself,  of  Himself,  for  ever  unchanged. 

206 


THE  COMFORTING  GOD. 

Comfort  ye,  comfort  ye  My  people^  saith  your  God, — IsA.  xl.  I, 

This  magnificent  chapter  is  the  prelude  or  overture  to  the  grand 
"  ^  ■  music  of  the  second  part  of  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah.  Its  first 
words  are  its  keynote  :  "  Comfort  ye.  comfort  ye  My  people."  That 
purpose  is  kept  steadily  in  view  throughout ;  and  in  this  introductory 
ciiapter  the  prophet  points  to  the  onh'  foundation  of  hope  and  consolation 
for  Babylonian  exiles,  or  for  modern  Englishmen,  to  that  grand  vision  of 
the  enthroned  God  "sitting  on  the  circle  of  the  earth,  before  whom  the 
inhabitants  thereof  are  as  grasshoppers." 

"They  build  too  low  who  build  beneath  the  sky." 

For  nations  and  for  individuals,  in  view  of  political  disasters  or  of  private 
sorrows,  the  only  holdfast  to  which  cheerful  hope  may  cling  is  ilie  old 
conviction,  "  The  Lord  God  Omnipotent  reigneth." 

Notice  how,  first,  the  prophet  points  to  the  unwearied  God  ;  and  then  his 
e)xs  drop  from  Heaven  to  the  clouded,  saddened  earth,  where  there  are  the 
faint  and  the  weak,  and  the  strong  becoming  faint,  and  the  youths  fading 
and  becoming  weak  with  age.  Then  he  binds  together  these  two  opposites 
— the  unwearied  God  and  the  fainting  man— in  the  grand  thought  that  He 
is  the  Giving  God,  who  bestows  all  His  power  on  the  weary.  And  see 
how,  finally,  he  rises  to  the  blessed  conception  of  the  wearied  man  becoming 
like  the  Unwearied  God.  "  They  shall  run,  and  not  be  weary ;  they  shall 
walk,  and  not  faint." 

And  let  me  say,  here  is  a  lesson  for  us  to  learn  of  meditative  reflection 
upon  the  veriest  commonplaces  of  our  religion.  There  is  a  tendency 
amongst  us  all  to  forget  the  indubitable,  and  to  let  our  religious  thought  be 
occupied  with  the  disputable  and  secondary  parts  of  revelation  rather  than 
with  the  plain  deep  verities  which  form  its  heart  and  centre.  The  common- 
places of  religion  are  the  most  important.  Ever3'body  needs  air,  light, 
bread,  and  water.  Dainties  are  for  the  few ;  but  the  table  which  our 
religion  sometimes  spreads  for  them  is  like  that  at  a  rich  man's  feast — plenty 
of  rare  dishes,  but  never  a  bit  of  bread  ;  plenty  of  wine  and  wine-glasses, 
but  not  a  tumblerful  of  spring  water  to  be  had.  Every  pebble  that  you 
kick  with  your  foot,  if  thought  about  and  treasured,  contains  the  secret  of 
the  universe.  The  commonplaces  of  our  faith  are  the  food  upon  which  our 
faith  will  most  richly  feed. 

And  so  here,  in  the  old,  old  Word,  that  we  all  take  for  granted  as  being 
so  true  that  we  do  not  need  to  think  about  it,  lies  the  source  of  all  consola- 
tion—the Hope  for  men,  for  churches,  for  the  world.  We  all  have  times, 
depending  on  mood  or  circumstances,  when  things  seem  black  and  we  are 
weary.  This  great  truth  will  shine  into  our  gloom  like  a  star  into  a 
dungeon.  Are  our  hearts  to  tremble  for  God's  truth  to-day  ?  Are  we  to 
share  in  the  pessimist  views  of  some  faint-hearted  and  little-faith  Christians? 
Surely  as  long  as  we  can  remember  the  name  of  the  Lord,  and  His  un- 
wearied arm,  we  have  nothing  to  do  with  fear  or  sadness  for  ourselves,  or 
for  His  Church,  or  for  His  world. 

207 


POWER  FOR  THE  FAINT. 

He,  giveth  power  to  the  faint.  .  .  .  Even  the  youths  shall  faint  and  be 
weary  .  .  .  but  they  that  zvait  upon  the  Lord  shall  renew  their  streug/h;  they 
shall  mount  up  with  ivings  as  eagles;  they  shall  run,  and  not  be  weary;  and 
they  shall  walk^  and  not  faint. — Isa.  xl.  29-31. 

-  ,    26     Earth  knows  no  independent  strength.     All  earthly  power  is 
'    limited  in  range  and  duration,  and  by  the  very  law  of  its  being 
is  steadily  tending  to  weakness. 

But  though  that  has  a  sad  side,  it  has  also  a  grand  and  blessed  one. 
Man's  needs  are  the  open  mouth — if  I  may  say  so — into  which  God  puts  His 
gifts.  The  more  sad  and  pathetic  the  condition  of  feeble  humanity  by  con- 
trast with  the  strength,  the  immortal  strength  of  God,  the  more  wondrous 
that  grace  and  power  of  His,  which  is  not  contented  with  hanging  there  in  the 
Heavens  above  us,  but  bends  right  down  to  bless  us  and  to  turn  us  into  its 
own  likeness.  The  low  earth  stretches,  grey  and  sorrowful,  flat  and  dreary, 
beneath  the  blue,  arched  heaven,  but  the  heaven  stoops  to  encompass,  ay  ! 
to  touch  it.  "  He  giveth  power  to  the  faint,  and  to  them  that  have  no  might 
He  increaseth  strength." 

All  creatural  life  digs  its  own  grave.  "  The  youths  shall  faint  with  the 
weakness  of  physical  decay,  the  weakness  of  burdened  hearts,  the  weakness 
of  consciously  distracted  natures,  the  weakness  of  agonising  conscience. 
They  shall  be  weary  with  the  weariness  of  dreary  monotony,  of  uncongenial 
tasks,  of  long-continued  toil,  of  hope  deferred,  of  disappointed  wishes,  of 
bitter  disenchantments,  of  the  learning  the  lesson  that  all  is  vanity,  the 
weariness  that  creeps  over  us  all  as  life  goes  on."  All  these  are  the 
occasions  for  the  inward  strength  of  God  to  manifest  itself  even  in  us  ; 
according  to  the  great  word  that  He  spoke  once  and  means  ever:  "My 
grace  is  sufficient  for  thee,  and  My  strength  is  made  perfect  in  weakness." 

Isaiah  did  not  know — or,  if  he  did,  he  knew  it  very  dimly — what  every 
Christian  child  knows :  that  the  highest  revelation  of  the  power  of  Him 
that  "  fainteth  not,  neither  is  weary,"  is  found  in  Him  who,  "being  weary 
with  His  journey,  sat  thus  on  the  well,"  and,  being  worn  out  with  the  long 
work  and  excitement  of  a  hard  day,  slept  the  sleep  of  the  labouring  man  on 
the  wooden  pillow  of  the  little  boat  amid  the  whistle  of  the  tempest  and  the 
dash  of  the  waves. 

And  Isaiah  did  not  know — or,  if  he  did,  he  knew  it  very  dimly  and  as 
from  afar — that  the  highest  fulfilment  of  His  own  word — '*  He  giveth  power 
to  the  faint,  and  to  them  that  have  no  might  He  increaseth  strength  "— 
would  be  found  when  a  gentle  voice  from  amidst  the  woes  of  humanity 
said  :  "  Come  unto  Me  !  all  ye  that  labour  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will 
give  you  rest  Take  My  yoke  upon  you  ;  and  ye  shall  find  rest  unto  your 
souls." 

208 


LIFTED  TO  THE  HIGH  LEVEL. 

« 

They  go  from  strength  to  strength  ;  every  one  of  them  appeareth  before 
God  in  Zion. — Psalm  Ixxxiv.  7* 

The  phrase  means,  of  course,  the  continuous  bestowment  in 
July  27.  unintermitting  sequence  of  fresh  gifts  of  power,  as  each  former 
gift  becomes  exhausted,  and  more  is  required.  Instant  by  instant,  with 
unbroken  flow,  as  golden  shafts  of  hght  travel  from  the  central  sun,  and 
each  beam  is  linked  with  the  source  from  which  it  comes  by  a  line  that 
stretches  through  milhons  and  millions  of  miles,  so  God's  gift  of  strength 
pours  into  us  as  we  need.  Grace  abhors  a  vacuum,  as  nature  does.  And 
just  as  the  endless  procession  of  the  waves  rises  up  on  to  the  beach,  or  as  the 
restless  network  of  the  moonlight  irradiation  of  the  billows  stretches  all  across 
the  darkness  of  the  sea,  so  that  unbroken  continuity  of  strength  after  strength 
gives  grace  for  grace  according  to  our  need ;  and  as  each  former  supply  is 
expended  and  used  up,  God  pours  Himself  into  our  hearts  anew.  That  con- 
tinuous communication  leads  to  the  "perpetual  youth"  of  the  Christian 
soul.  For  the  words  of  Isaiah,  "They  shall  mount  up  with  wings  as 
eagles,"  might  perhaps  more  accurately  be  rendered,  "  They  shall  put  forth 
their  pinions  as  eagles" — the  allusion  being  to  the  popular  behef  that  in 
extreme  old  age  the  eagle  moulted  and  renewed  its  feathers — that  popular 
belief  which  is  referred  to  in  Psalm  ciii.,  "  Who  satisfieth  thy  mouth  with 
good  things,  so  that  thy  youth  is  renewed  like  the  eagle's." 

The  same  idea  is  here  that  though,  according  to  the  law  of  physical 
life,  decaying  strength,  and  advancing  years,  that  tame  and  sober  and 
disenchant  and  often  make  weary  because  they  are  famiUar  with  all  things 
and  take  the  edge  off  everything, — though  these  tell  upon  us  whether  we  are 
Christians  or  not,  and  in  some  important  respects  tell  upon  us  all  alike,  yet, 
if  we  are  "waiting  upon  God,"  keeping  our  hearts  near  Him,  living  on  His 
love,  trying  to  realise  His  inward  presence  and  His  outstretched  hand,  then 
we  shall  have  such  a  continuous  communication  of  His  grace,  strength,  and 
beauty  as  that  we  shall  grow  younger  as  we  grow  older,  and,  as  the  good 
old  Scotch  psalm  has  it, 

'*  In  old  age,  when  others  fade, 
They  fruit  still  forth  shall  bring." 

**The  oldest  angels  are  the  youngest,"  said  Swedenborg.  "They  that 
wait  upon  'the  Lord'  have  drunk  of  the  fountain  of  perpetual  youth, 
for  the  buoyancy  and  the  inextinguishable  hope  which  are  the  richest 
possessions  of  youth  may  abide  with  them  whose  hopes  are  set  on  things 
beyond  tlie  sky." 

209  p 


CONTINUOUS  STRENGTH. 
He  giveth   more  grace. — ^James   iv.    6. 

Jul  28  ^^^'s  strength,  poured  into  our  hearts,  if  we  wait  upon  Him, 
^  '  shall  fit  us  for  the  moments  of  special  hard  effort.  *'  They  shall 
run  and  not  be  weary,"  for  the  crises  which  require  more  than  an  ordinary 
amount  of  energy  to  be  put  forth  ;  and  for  the  long  dreary  hours  which 
require  nothing  but  keeping  doggedly  at  monotonous  duties,  "  They  shall 
walk  and  not  faint." 

It  is  a  great  deal  easier  to  be  up  to  the  occasion  in  some  shining  moment 
of  a  man's  life  when  he  knows  that  a  supreme  hour  has  come  than  it  is  to 
keep  that  high  tone  when  plodding  over  all  the  dreary  plateaux  of  unevent- 
ful, monotonous  travel  and  dull  duties.  It  is  easier  to  run  fast  for  a  minute 
than  to  grind  along  the  dusty  road  for  a  day. 

Many  a  ship  has  stood  the  tempest,  and  then  has  gone  down  in  the 
harbour  because  its  timbers  have  been  gnawed  to  pieces  by  white  ants. 
And  many  a  man  can  do  what  is  wanted  in  the  trying  moments,  and  yet 
make  shipwreck  of  his  faith  in  uneventful  times. 

"  Like  ships  that  have  g-one  down  at  sea, 
When  heaven  was  all  tranquillity. 

Soldiers  who  could  stand  firm  and  strike  with  all  their  might  in  the  hour 
of  battle  will  fall  asleep  or  have  their  courage  ooze  out  at  their  fingers'  ends 
when  they  have  to  keep  solitary  watch  at  their  posts  through  a  long  winter's 
night.  We  have  all  a  few  moments  in  life  of  hard,  glorious  running  ;  but 
we  have  days  and  years  of  walking,  the  uneventful  discharge  of  small 
duties.  We  need  strength  for  both  ;  but  paradoxical  as  it  may  sound, 
we  need  it  most  for  the  multitude  of  smaller  duties.  We  know  where  to 
get  it.  Let  us  keep  close  to  "  Christ,  the  Power  of  God,"  and  open  our 
hearts  to  the  entering  in  of  His  unwearied  strength.  "  Then  shall  the 
lame  man  leap  as  a  hart,"  and  we  shall  "  run  with  patience  the  race  that 
is  set  before  us,"  if  we  look  to  Jesus,  and  follow  in  His  steps. 

A  man  complains  that  his  path  is  hid,  his  course  on  earth  seems  so  sad 
and  cloudy  and  weary  as  compared  with  the  paths  of  those  great  stars 
that  move  without  friction,  effort,  confusion,  dust,  noise,  while  all  these 
things — friction,  effort,  confusion,  dust,  noise — beset  our  little  carts  as  we 
tug  them  along  the  dreary  road  of  life. 

But,  says  Isaiah,  His  power  does  not  show  itself  so  nobly  up  there 
among  the  stars  as  it  does  down  here.  It  is  not  so  much  to  keep  the  strong 
in  their  strength  as  to  give  strength  to  the  weak.  It  is  much  to  "  preserve 
the  stars  from  wrong,"  it  is  more  to  restore  and  to  break  the  power  into 
feeble  men  ;  much  to  uphold  all  them  that  are  falling  so  that  they  may  not 
fall,  Ixit  it  is  more  to  raise  up  all  those  that  are  fallen  and  are  bowed  down. 
So,  brother,  what  God  does  with  a  poor,  weak  creature  like  me,  when  He 
lilts  up  our  weakness  and  replenishes  our  weariness  ;  pouring  oil  and  wine 
into  our  wounds  and  a  cordial  into  our  lips,  and  sending  us,  with  the  joy  of 
pardon,  upon  our  road  again  ;  that  is  a  greater  thing  than  when  He  rolls 
Neptune  in  its  mighty  orl)it  round  the  central  sun,  or  upliolds  with  unwearied 
arms,  from  cycle  to  cycle,  the  circle  of  the  heavens  with  ail  its  stars.  '*  He 
giveth  power  to  the  faint  "  is  His  divinest  work. 

2IO 


THE  PERFECTION   OF  HOPE. 

Evety  one  that  hath  this  hope  set  on  Him  purifieth  himself ^  even  as  He  is 
pure. — I  John  iii.  3. 

What  constitutes  perfect  hope  ?    First,  that  it  shall  be  certain  ; 

"  ^  *  and  no  earthly  hope  is  so.  For  we  all  know  that  there  blends 
with,  and  shadows  the  brightness  of,  every  such  anticipation  an  opposite 
possibility.  "It  may  be  ;  it  may  not  be.'  And  when  thus  "  hopes  and 
fears  that  kindle  hope"  are  blended  as  *'an  indistinguishable  throng," 
and  we  are  tossed  from  one  to  the  other  as  a  shuttlecock  between  two 
battledores,  there  can  be  no  perfection  of  hope.  If  my  anticipations  are 
set  upon  contingent  things,  they  must  vary  with  their  objects.  You  cannot 
build  a  solid  house  on  a  quagmire  ;  you  must  have  rock  for  that.  So,  the 
only  perfect  hope  is  that  which  grasps  a  perfect  certainty.  Christian  hope 
ought  to  be,  if  I  might  so  say,  screwed  up  to  the  level  of  that  on  which 
it  is  fastened.  It  is  a  shame  that  Christian  people  should  be  wavering  in 
their  anticipations  of  that  which  in  itself  is  certain.  A  sure  and  steadfast 
hope  is  the  only  perfect  hope. 

Again,  the  perfection  of  hope  lies  in  its  being  patient,  persistent  through 
discouragement,  burning  bright  in  the  darkness,  like  a  pillar  of  fire  by 
night ;  and  most  of  all  in  its  being  operative  upon  life,  and  contributing 
to  steadfastness  of  endurance  and  to  energy  of  effort.  This  is  exactly  what 
the  feeble  and  fluctuating  hopes  of  earth  never  do.  For  the  more  a  man 
is  living  in  anticipation  of  an  uncertain  good,  the  less  is  he  able  to  fling 
himself  with  wholeness  of  purpose  and  effort  into  the  duties  and  enjoyments 
of  the  present.  But  a  perfect  hope  will  be  the  ally  and  not  the  darkener 
of  the  brightness  of  the  present.  And  if  we  hope  as  we  should  for  that  we 
see  not,  then  shall  we  with  patience  wait  for  it.  I  fancy  that  the  experience 
of  most  men  is  that  the  more  they  indulge  in  the  pleasant,  but  profitless, 
amusement  of  forecasting  to  themselves  future  earthly  good,  the  less  are 
they  fit  for  the  strenuous  work  of  to-day.  To-morrow  deceives  us  when 
it  is  an  earthly  to-morrow.  But  "  every  man  that  hath  this  hope  in  Christ," 
and  only  the  man  who  has,  "  purifies  himself  even  as  He  is  pure." 

Here,  then,  is  the  sort  of  hope  which  it  is  laid  upon  us  Christian  people 
consciously  to  try  to  cherish,  one  which  is  fixed  and  certain,  one  which 
is  the  mother  of  patience  and  endurance,  one  which  persists  through  and 
triumphs  over  all  trouble  and  sorrow,  one  which  nerves  us  for  effort  and 
opens  our  eyes  to  appreciate  the  blessings  of  the  present,  and  one  which 
wars  against  all  uncleanness  and  lifts  us  up  in  aspiration  and  aim  towards 
the  purity  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Think  of  the  blessedness  of  living  thus,  lifted  up  above  all  the  un- 
certainties that  rack  men  when  they  think  about  to-morrow.  Try  to 
realise  the  blessedness  of  escaping  from  the  disappointments  which  come 
from  all  earthward-turned  expectations,  when  the  radiant  bubble  bursts, 
and  there  is  nothing  left  in  our  hands  but  a  little  dirty  soap-suds,  as  is  the 
case  with  so  many  of  our  fulfilled  anticipations  of  good.  Try  to  realise 
the  blessedness  of  escaping  from  that  despairing  hopelessness  that  creeps 
over  men  as  life  ebbs  away  and  the  years  diminish.  And  remember  the 
buoyant  words  of  the  Psalmist,  who,  because  God  was  his  hope,  therefore, 
though  he  was  "old  and  grey-headed,"  sang,  "I  shall  hope  continually." 
The  brightest  blaze  of  Christian  hope  may  be  on  the  verge  of  the  darkness 
of  the  grave. 

211 


THE   DISCIPLINE   OF   HOPE. 

Wherefore,  girding  up  the  loins  of  your  nvlnd,  be  sober ^  and  set  your 
hope  perfectly  on  the  grace  that  is  to  be  brought  unto  you  at  the  revelation  of 
Jesus  Christ. — I  Peter  i.  13. 

"Gird  up  the  loins  of  your  mind."  I  suppose  I  do  not  need 
^  ■  to  do  more  than  remind  you  that  that  figure,  appHed  to  travellers, 
to  soldiers,  to  any  men  who  have  a  hard  task  upon  their  hands,  simply 
expresses  the  gathering  together  of  all  one's  powers,  the  training  one's  self 
for  given  tasks.  It  suggests  that  there  is  a  great  deal  in  this  life  that 
makes  it  very  difficult  for  us  to  keep  firm  hold  of  the  facts  on  which 
alone  a  perfect  hope  can  be  built.  Unless  we  tighten  up  our  belt,  and 
so  put  all  our  strength  into  the  effort,  the  truths  of  the  resurrection  which 
beget  to  a  lively  hope,  of  the  great  salvation  wrought  by  Jesus  Christ, 
of  the  meaning  and  end  of  all  our  trials  and  sorrows,  will  slip  away  from 
us,  and  we  shall  be  left  at  the  mercy  of  the  varying  anticipations  of  good 
or  evil  which  may  emerge  from  the  varying  circumstances  of  the  fleeting 
moment.  We  have,  then,  to  gather  ourselves  up  and  set  our  teeth  in  the 
effort  to  keep  hold  of  Christ,  of  His  work,  of  its  bearing  upon  ourselves, 
of  the  meaning  of  our  sorrows,  if  we  would  not  have  like  fluctuations  in 
our  heavenly  to  those  which  necessarily  belong  to  our  earthly  hopes. 

"Be  sober."  That  means,  not  only  gather  yourself  together  with 
a  consecrated  efibrt,  but  "keep  your  heel  well  down  on  the  necks  of  lower 
and  earthly  desires."  The  word,  of  course,  points,  first,  to  temperance — 
not,  as  we  use  it,  only  in  respect  to  one  form  of  sensual  indulgence,  but  to 
temperance — in  regard  of  all  the  animal  necessities  and  desires.  The  fleshly 
lusts  that  belong  to  everybody  must  be  subdued.  That  goes  without  saying. 
But,  then,  there  are  others  more  subtle,  more  refined,  but  not  less  hostile 
to  the  perfectness  of  a  heaven -directed  hope  than  are  these  grosser  ones. 
We  must  keep  down  all  the  desires  and  appetites  of  our  nature,  both  of  the 
flesh  and  of  the  spirit.  For  we  have  only  a  certain  quantity  of  energy  to 
expend,  and  if  we  expend  it  upon  the  things  of  earth  there  is  nothing  left 
for  the  things  above.  If  you  take  the  river,  and  lead  it  all  out  into  the 
gardens  that  are  irrigated  by  it,  or  into  the  stream  that  drives  your  mills, 
its  bed  will  be  left  bare,  and  little  of  the  water  will  reach  the  great  ocean 
which  is  its  home.  If  a  gardener  wants  a  tree  to  grow  high,  he  strips 
off  the  side  shoots.  Our  hopes  follow  our  desires.  What  we  deem  good 
is  what  we  hope  for ;  and  if  our  desires  all  go  trailing  and  grovelling  along 
the  earth,  our  hopes  will  never  rise  to  the  heavens.  A  gorged  eagle 
cannot  soar.  Christian  men  whose  heads  and  hearts  are  stuffed  full  of  tlie 
trivialities  of  earth  have  little  of  the  perfect  hope  which  fastens  on  Christ. 

212 


THE  OBJECT  OF  CHRISTIAN  HOPE. 

Looking  for  the  blessed  hope  and  appearing  of  the  glory  of  our  great  God 
and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ. — Titus  ii.  13, 

Jul    31     ^^  ^^  interesting  to  notice  the  various  phases  under  which  the 

^  '  ■  future  perfecting  of  the  Christian  life  and  fehcity  in  Heaven  is 
set  forth  in  the  New  Testament.  Sometimes  we  read  of  the  object  of  our 
hope  as  being  the  resurrection  from  tlie  dead  ;  sometimes  we  read  of  the 
"hope  of  righteousness";  sometimes  we  read  of  the  "hope  of  eternal 
life"  ;  sometimes  of  the  "hope  of  the  glory  of  God"  ;  sometimes  of  the 
"  hope  of  salvation."  But  all  these  are  but  the  many  facets  of  the  one  jewel, 
flashing  many-coloured  and  yet  harmonious  light.  Peter  adds  another 
general  expression  when  he  sums  up  the  felicities  and  perfectness  of  that 
future  life  in  this  remarkable  and  unusual  phrase,  "the  grace  that  is  to  be 
brought." 

Now,  we  generally,  in  our  ordinary,  popular,  religious  speech,  draw  a 
broad  distinction  between  "grace"  and  "glory."  But  the  use  of  the  word 
here,  though  unusual,  and  just  because  it  is  unusual,  is  instructive  and 
significant.  It  suggests  to  us  the  great  thought  that  all  the  lustrous  light 
that  lies  beyond,  to  the  furthest  distances  of  eteriiity,  is  the  free  gift  of  love, 
undeserved,  and  bestowing  its  treasures  on  those  who  have  no  claim  to  it, 
at  the  end  of  countless  millennium's,  any  more  than  they  had  at  the  beginning. 
"  Grace  reigns  through  righteousness  unto  eternal  life"  ;  and  no  man  of  the 
countless  nations  of  the  blessed  can  say,  "  Give  me  the  portion  for  which 
I  have  worked,"  but  all  must  bow  and  say,  "Give  me  from  Thine  own 
loving  heart  that  which  I  do  not  deserve,"  "  the  grace  that  is  to  be  brought 
at  the  appearing  of  Jesus  Christ." 

Then  there  is  another  thought  suggested  by  this  remarkable  expression, 
and  that  is  the  essential  identity  of  the  Christian  life  here  and  hereafter. 
We  are  accustomed  to  include  all  the  virtues  and  blessednesses  that  here 
belong  to  faith  and  love  under  that  one  common  designation  of  "grace," 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  we  name  the  future  heavenly  state  "glory."  But, 
according  to  the  Apostle,  grace  and  glor)^  are  one  in  essence.  The  tender 
green  of  the  springing  corn  is  the  prophet  of  the  yellow  full  ear.  What  we 
have  here  is  a  spark  which  shall  be  fanned  yonder  into  a  radiant  flame. 
But  the  difference  is  one  of  degree,  and  not  of  kind.  "Grace"  is  "glory" 
in  the  bud  ;  "  glory  "is  "  grace  "  in  the  fruit. 

There  are  many  good  people  who  are  so  unduly  conscious  of  their  imper- 
fections and  sins  that  they  think  it  is  almost  wrong  in  them  to  assume  the 
tone  of  steadfast  anticipation  which  the  New  Testament  sets  before  us  as 
proper  for  us,  and  who  scarcely  venture  to  say,  "I  hope  to  enter  into  that 
rest."  Brother  !  we  are  neglecting  a  plain  duty  and  impoverishing  our- 
selves unnecessarily,  by  the  want  of  a  treasure  which  belongs  to  us,  unless 
we  are  making  conscious  efforts  for  our  increase  in  hope  as  in  faith  and 
charity. 

213 


THE  GRACE  OF  HOPE. 

Good  hope  through  grace. — 2  Thess.  ii.  1 6, 

In  I  Peter  i.  13  we  are  exhorted  to  '*  set  our  hope  perfectly  on 
^^  ■  the  grace  that  is  to  be  brought  at  the  appearing  of  Jesus  Christ." 
It  is  to  be  "  brought  unto  you."  Now,  the  margins  of  your  Bibles  give  you 
a  truer  notion  of  the  Apostle's  meaning.  Pie  did  not  write  "that  is  to  be 
brought,"  as  if  the  gift  was  all  a  future  one,  but  "  that  is  being  borne  towards 
you "  ;  or,  as  one  of  the  old  commentators  on  Peter  says,  in  his  archaic 
and  forcible  English,  "  the  grace  that  is  a  bringing  to  you."  The  word  is 
the  same  which  is  used  to  describe  the  audible  approach  of  that  mighty  wind 
on  the  Day  of  Pentecost — "rushing."  The  notion  suggested  is  that  this 
great  gift  has,  as  it  were,  already  started  on  its  passage  towards  us,  across 
the  fields  of  space  and  the  ages  of  the  world.  It  is  in  motion  towards  us, 
as  if  some  choir  of  angels  were  winging  their  way  to  this  small  island  in  the 
deep  across  the  abysses,  bearing  in  their  hands  this  holy  bestowment.  It 
is  bearing  down  upon  us,  like  a  ship  at  sea,  or  like  some  star  travelling 
towards  us,  first  a  point  of  light,  then  a  disc  of  brightness,  then  a  world  of 
glory  which  envelops  us.  That  representation  is  true,  because  every  tick 
of  the  pendulum  brings  '*  the  grace  "  nearer.  Though  centuries  pass  before 
the  light  from  the  far-off  shining  reaches  us,  it  is  travelling,  travelling, 
travelling  towards  us  at  every  moment.  So  we  should  hope.  Peter  further 
suggests  to  us  that  this  swi  tly  moving  and  approximating  grace  is  all 
wrapped  up  in  "  the  appearing  of  Jesus  Christ."  When  He  comes,  it  comes  ; 
for  it  is  but  the  impartation  of  Him,  and  we  know  that  "  when  He  shall 
appear  we  shall  be  hke  Him,  for  we  shall  see  Him  as  He  is." 

Such,  then,  is  the  object  of  Christian  hope  stated  in  its  most  general 
terms  — a  grace  which  includes  resurrection,  salvation,  righteousness,  eternal 
life,  the  glory  of  God,  and  that  grace  ever  tending  towards  us,  and  that  ever 
tending  grace  to  be  ours  in  its  fulness,  when  Christ  is  manifested  and  "we 
shall  be  manifested  with  Plim  in  glory."  How  diflerent  in  its  dignity,  in 
its  certainty,  in  its  remoteness,  which  is  a  blessing — how  different  from 
the  paltry,  shortsighted  anticipations  of  a  near  future  which  delude  us 
along  the  path  of  earthly  effort !  Surely,  surely,  this  great  and  strange 
prerogative  of  humanity,  the  large  discourse  which  looks  before  and  after, 
was  given  to  us  for  other  purposes  than  that  we  should  lavish  and  waste  it 
upon  fleeting  things!  But  the  most  of  us  behave  with  that  great  faculty 
of  anticipating  and  imagining  the  future  as  an  astronomer  might  do,  who, 
having  in  his  possession  a  telescope  fit  to  pierce  the  secrets  of  the  skies, 
should  prefer  to  turn  it  only  upon  the  trivialities  of  earth.  "Wherefore, 
hope  perfectly  for  the  grace  that  is  being  brought  to  you  in  the  appearing 
of  Jesus  Christ." 

214 


FOR  HIS  SAKE. 

Thus  satth  the  Lord  God :  I  do  not  this  for  your  sake,  O  House  of  Israel, 
but  for  Mine  Holy  Name. — Ezek.  xxxvi.  22. 

The  foundation  of  all  God's  love  to  us  sinful  men  lies  not  in  us, 
Augfust  2. 

nor  anything  about  us,  not  in  anything  external  to  God  Himself. 
He,  and  He  alone,  is  the  cause  and  reason,  the  motive  and  the  end,  of  His 
own  love  to  our  world.  And  unless  we  have  grasped  that  magnificent 
thought  as  the  foundation  of  all  our  acceptance  in  Him,  I  think  we  have  not 
yet  learnt  half  of  the  fulness  which,  even  in  this  world,  may  belong  to  our 
conceptions  of  the  love  of  God — a  love  that  has  no  motive  but  Himself ;  a 
love  that  is  not  evoked  even  (if  I  may  so  say)  by  regard  to  His  creatures' 
wants  ;  a  love,  therefore,  which  is  eternal,  being  in  that  Divine  heart  before 
there  were  creatures  upon  whom  it  could  rest ;  a  love  that  is  its  own 
guarantee,  its  own  cause — safe  and  firm,  therefore,  with  all  the  firmness  and 
serenity  of  the  Divine  nature — incapable  of  being  affected  by  our  transgres- 
sion, deeper  than  all  our  sins,  more  ancient  than  our  very  existence,  the 
very  essence  and  being  of  God  Himself.  **  He  frankly  forgave  them  both." 
If  you  seek  the  source  of  Divine  love,  you  must  go  high  up  into  the  moun- 
tains of  God,  and  learn  that  it,  as  all  other  of  His  (shall  I  say  ?)  emotions  and 
feelings  and  resolutions  and  purposes  owns  no  reason  but  Himself,  no 
motive  but  Himself ;  lies  wrapped  in  the  secret  of  His  nature,  who  is  all- 
sufficient  for  His  own  blessedness,  and  all  whose  work  and  being  is  caused 
by,  and  satisfied,  and  terminates  in  His  own  fulness.  "God  is  love"; 
therefore,  beneath  all  considerations  of  what  we  may  want — deeper  and 
more  blessed  than  all  thoughts  of  a  compassion  that  springs  from  the  feeling 
of  human  distress  and  the  sight  of  man's  misery — lies  this  thought  of  an 
affection  which  does  not  need  the  presence  of  sorrow  to  evoke  it,  which 
does  not  want  the  touch  of  our  finger  to  flow  out,  but  by  its  very  nature  is 
everlasting,  by  its  very  nature  is  infinite,  by  its  very  nature  must  be  pouring 

out  the  flood  of  its  own  joyous  fulness  for  ever  and  ever  ! 

215 


GOD'S   LOVE  DEEPER  THAN   OUR  SINS. 

/  have  loved  thee  with  an  everlasting  love :  therefore  with  loving-kiiulitess 
have  I  drawn  thee. — Je:i.  xxxi.  3. 

"  This  Man,  if  He  were  a  prophet,  would  have  known  who 
°  '  and  what  manner  of  woman  this  is  that  toucheth  Him,"  says 
the  unloving  and  self  righteous  heart,  "for  she  is  a  sinner."  Ah!  there 
is  nothing  more  beautiful  than  the  difference  between  the  thought  about 
sinful  creatures  which  is  natural  to  a  holy  being,  and  the  thought  about  sin- 
ful creatures  which  is  natural  to  a  self-righicoiis  being.  The  one  is 
all  contempt  ;  the  other,  all  pity.  He  knew  what  she  was,  and  there- 
fore He  let  her  come  close  to  Him  with  the  touch  of  her  polluted 
hand,  and  pour  out  the  gains  of  her  lawless  life  and  the  adornments  of 
her  former  corruption  upon  His  most  blessed  and  most  holy  head.  His 
knowledge  of  her  as  a  s.'nner,  what  did  it  do  to  His  love  for  her?  It  made 
that  love  gentle  and  tender,  as  knowing  that  she  could  not  bear  the 
revelation  of  the  blaze  oi  His  purity.  It  smoothed  His  face  and  softened 
His  tones,  and  breathed  through  all  His  knowledge  and  notice  of  her 
timid  and  yet  confident  approach.  "Daughter,  I  know  all  about  it — 
all  thy  wanderings  and  thy  vile  transgressions :  I  know  them  all,  and  My 
love  is  mightier  than  all  these.  They  may  be  as  the  great  sea,  but  My  love 
is  like  the  everlasting  mountains,  whose  roots  go  down  beneath  the  ocean  ; 
and  My  love  is  like  the  everlasting  heaven,  whose  brightness  covers  it  all 
over."  God's  love  is  Christ's  love  ;  Christ's  love  is  God's  love.  And  this 
is  the  lesson — that  that  infinite  and  Divine  loving-kindness  does  not  turn 
away  from  thee  because  thou  art  a  sinner,  but  remains  hovering  about  thee, 
with  wooing  invitations  and  gentle  touches,  if  it  may  draw  thee  to 
repentance,  and  open  a  fountain  of  answering  affection  in  thy  seared  and 
dry  heart.     The  love  of  God  is  deeper  than  all  our  sins. 

Sin  is  but  the  cloud  behind  which  the  everlasting  sun  lies  in  all  its 
power  and  warmth,  unaffected  by  the  cloud  ;  and  the  light  will  yet  strike, 
the  light  of  His  love  will  yet  pierce  through,  with  its  merciful  shafts 
bringing  healing  in  their  beams,  and  dispersing  all  the  pitchy  darkness  of 
man's  transgression.  And  as  the  mists  gather  themselves  up  and  roll 
away,  dissipated  by  the  heat  of  that  sun  in  the  upper  sky,  and  reveal  the 
fair  earth  below,  so  the  love  of  Christ  shines  in,  melting  the  mist  and 
dissipating  the  fog,  thinning  it  off  in  its  thickest  places,  and  at  last  piercing 
its  way  right  through  it,  down  to  the  heart  of  the  man  that  has  been  lying 
beneath  the  oppression  of  this  thick  darkness,  and  who  thought  that  the 
fog  was  the  sky,  and  that  there  was  no  sun  there  above.  God  be  thanked  ! 
The  everlasting  love  of  God,  that  comes  from  the  heart  of  His  own  being, 
and  is  there  because  of  Himself,  will  never  be  quenched  because  of 
man's  sin. 

216 


THE  CHRIST  AT  THE  DOOR. 

Behold  I  stand  at  the  door  and  knock  ;  if  any  man  hear  My  voice,  and 
open  the  dour,  I  will  come  in  to  hint,  and  will  sup  with  him,  and  he  with 
Me, — Rev.  iii.  20. 

Autrust  4  ^^  ^^^^  ^^^^  *^^  exalted  Christ  aslcing  to  be  let  in  to  a  man's 
heart.  The  latter  words  of  the  verse  si;2:gest  the  image  of  a 
banqueting-hall.  The  chamber  to  which  Christ  desires  entrance  is  full  of 
feasters.  There  is  room  for  everybody  else  there  but  Him.  JNIusic  and 
dancing  and  lights  and  good  cheer  and  laughter  fill  the  house,  and  He 
stands  without.  There  is  no  room  for  Him,  as  there  was  not  at  His 
birth. 

Now  the  plain,  sad  truth  which  that  sets  forth  is  this,  that  we  are  more 
wilhng  to  let  anybody  and  anything  come  into  our  thoughts,  and  find 
lodgment  in  our  affections,  than  we  are  to  let  Jesus  Christ  come  in.  Is  it 
so,  or  is  it  not  ?  The  doors  that  swing  wide  for  vanities  and  selfishnesses, 
lusts  and  passions,  whims  and  fancies,  and  favourite  pursuits,  are  barred 
and  bolted  in  His  face.  We  welcome  to  the  chief  seats  in  our  hearts  His 
and  our  worst  enemies.  They  flock  in  ;  He  stands  without,  like  some 
exiled  and  dethroned  monarch,  who,  coming  back  to  his  own  land  and  his 
own  palace,  stands  amongst  the  ragged  losels  on  the  pavement,  and  sees 
the  upstarts  and  the  rebels  passing  into  the  lighted  halls  ;  all  His  own, 
where  He  may  not  enter.     Is  it  so,  or  is  it  not  ? 

The  reality  of  Christ's  knocking  is  represented  not  only  as  being  the 
touch  of  an  importunate  hand,  but  is  accompanied  also  with  the  beseeching 
of  a  voice.  That  is  not  a  pretty  metaphor  only.  Jesus  Christ  is  living  and 
working  to-day ;  He  is  at  your  side,  present  though  unseen,  working  upon 
you  though  you  know  it  not ;  trying  to  draw  you  to  Himself ;  pleading 
with  you  year  by  year  and  moment  by  moment.  It  is  one  of  the  deepest 
facts  of  human  existence,  a  barred  heart,  and  a  present  Saviour  suing  for 
entrance. 

And  how  does  He  sue?  Does  He  not  knock  at  your  heart  by  that 
Book  of  which  the  very  spirit  in  all  its  parts  is  the  testimony  to  Him  ?  Is 
Pie  not  knocking  at  your  heart  loud  blows,  by  sorrows  and  gentle  touches, 
waxen  touches,  soft  and  warm  and  sweet  as  a  baby's  hand  ;  by  the  mercies 
that  come  to  you  day  by  day?  When  Absalom  would  not  go  to  Joab, 
Joab  burned  his  corn,  and  then  Absalom  came  to  him.  When  a  man  will 
not  come  to  Christ,  sometimes  He  burns  his  corn,  and  then,  sometimes, 
the  man  comes.  And  the  further  we  go  from  Him,  the  louder  the  beseeching 
impressiveness  of  the  knocks  of  His  hand.  Have  you  never  found  rising 
up  in  your  soul  a  sudden  conviction,  with  which  you  had  nothing  to  do  l)ut 
to  listen  to  it ;  teUing  you  what  you  ought  to  do  and  to  be  ?  Have  you 
not  sometimes  had  flashing  in  upon  you,  like  a  sudden  glare  in  the  dark,  the 
conviction,  "I  ought  to  be  a  Christian  and  to  follow  Jesus  Christ"? 
Such  voices — 

"Our  inward  ear 
Catches  sometimes  Loui  afar. 
Listen,  ponder,  hold  ihem  dear, 
For  of  God— of  God,  they  are." 

Every  conviction,  every  impression,  every  half  inclination  towards  Him 
that  has  risen  in  your  hearts,  though  you  fought  against  it  and  smothered 
it,  and  did  anything  with  it  Isut  obeyed  it,  has  been  His  knocking  there. 

217 


CHRIST'S  YEARNING  COMPASSION. 

It  is  the  voice  of  my  Beloved  that  knocketh,  saying,  Open  to  Me,  .  .  .  for 
My  head  is  filled  with  dew,  My  locks  with  the  drops  of  the  night. — Song  of 

S.   V.   2. 

Men  that  bear  precious  gifts  for  the  world  do  not  often  need  to 
August  .  |3gg£g(,|^  [ha^t  they  shall  be  accepted,  but  He  comes  to  it  and  ' '  prays 
us  with  much  entreaty  that  we  should  receive  the  gift."  We  are  mostly  too 
proud  to  sue  for  love,  especially  if  once  the  petition  has  been  repulsed,  but 
He  asks  to  be  let  into  your  heart  because  His  nature  and  His  name  is  Love, 
and,  being  such.  He  yearns  to  be  loved  by  you,  and  He  yearns  to  bless  you. 
His  asking  entrance  is,  then,  a  revelation  of  His  tenderness,  a  revelation  of 
His  lowhness,  and  also  a  revelation  of  His  patience.  Repulsed,  He  con- 
tinues to  plead  ;  neglected  and  unanswered,  still  that  uninterrupted  craving 
admission  goes  on  ;  Uke  Peter  at  the  gate  of  Mary's  house,  "  He  continues 
knocking."  Christ  never  gives  up  anybody,  Christ  never  abandons  as  hope- 
less the  task  of  drawing  any  to  Himself.  We  are  weary  of  trying  to  reclaim 
the  "irreclaimable "  people,  and  we  talk  very ghbly — some  of  us— about  the 
"hopeless  classes"  that  are  outside  the  reach  of  moral  influences,  and  the 
like.  There  are  no  such  classes  in  His  vision.  With  patience  of  a  God, 
patience  that  accepts  as  its  own  the  limits  which  He  set  for  ours,  "until 
seventy  times  seven,"  He  will  not  be  put  away:  but  He  pleads  with  you,  my 
brother  !  as  He  did  when  you  were  a  httle  child  ;  as  He  did  in  the  hot 
heyday  of  your  early  youth,  when  passions  were  strong,  and  novelty  was 
attractive,  and  bonds  were  unwelcomed,  and  religion  seemed  too  serious  for 
the  brightness  that  was  around  )^ou  ;  and  as  He  has  done  with  some  of  you 
in  the  maturity  of  life,  when  cares  have  burdened  your  hearts,  and  the 
deceitfulness  of  riches  and  the  anxieties  of  life  have  made  such  a  din  that  you 
could  not  hear  His  fingers  on  the  door.  He  pleads  with  us  all,  and  after 
every  repulse  :  "  I  ^'\\Y yet  plead  with  you,  saith  the  Lord."  At  your  heart, 
dear  friend,  by  all  your  mercies  and  by  all  your  cares,  by  the  sudden  impres- 
sions that  have  been  made  upon  you,  by  the  quick  monitions  of  conscience, 
by  the  emotions  of  the  mind  within,  by  the  words  of  human  teachers,  by  His 
Book  and  Gospel,  by  all  life  and  all  nature  which  are  in  His  hands,  and  by 
hidden  ways  which  only  a  Divine  foot  can  tread.  Pie  draws  nearer  to  us, 
pleading  with  us — all  for  this,  that  we  will  let  Him  come  into  our  hearts. 

So,  dear  brother,  when  He  stands  before  you  with  the  old  summons  and 
the  old  promise  on  His  hps,  "  Lift  up  your  heads  !  O  ye  gates  !  and  the 
King  of  Glory  shall  come  in,"  I  beseech  you  fling  wide  your  hearts  ;  say  to 
Him  :  "  If  Thou  hast  judged  me  to  be  faithful,  come  and  abide  in  my 
house  "  ;  and  He  will  enter  in,  and  bring  with  Him  His  gifts — peace,  pardon, 
purity,  and  blessedness,  and  He  and  you  will,  even  on  earth,  sit  together  at 
His  table. 

When  after  tossing  and  toil  on  the  midnight  sea  the  morning  brings  us 
to  the  shore,  we  shall  find  Him  waiting  with  His  welcome  and  a  feast  spread 
and  prepared  by  His  own  hands,  to  which  He  will  honour  us  by  bidding 
us  bring  the  results  of  the  long  night  of  labour ;  and  so  in  highest 
fashion  this  great  word  will  be  fulfilled,  and  at  His  table  in  His  Kingdom 
the  King  Himself  shall  sup  with  us  and  we  with  Him. 

2lS 


THE  RESPONSIBLE  POWER  OF  CHOICE. 

She  obeyed  not  the  voice  ;  she  received  not  correction  ;  she  trusted  not  in 
the  Lord ;  she  drew  not  near  to  her  God. — Zeph.  iii.  2. 

.  g     "If  any  man  will  open  the  door" — the  door  has  no  handle  on 

the  outside.  It  opens  iTom  within.  Christ  knocks  ;  we  open. 
I  do  not  need  to  plunge  into  metaphysics  :  it  is  a  plain  fact  that  men  can, 
and  that  men  do,  reject  all  this  pleading  love  and  meek  patience  of  the 
beseeching  Christ.  It  is  the  history  of  the  lives  of  some  of  us  ;  hundreds 
of  times  we  have  done  it,  and  have  settled  ourselves  into  the  attitude  and 
habit  of  doing  it.  Do  not  be  sophisticated  out  of  the  recognition  of  the  fact 
that  it  is  your  fault  if  you  are  not  a  Christian  by  any  quasi-philosophical 
theory  about  responsibility  and  the  like.  "If  any  man  open  the  door," 
says  Christ.  The  man  has  to  open  it ;  and  if  the  man  does  not  open  it,  it  stops 
shut. 

And  how  do  you  open  it?  If,  when  He  comes  to  you  and  says, 
*'  Child  !  thou  art  sinful ;  I  have  died  for  thee  !  trust  thyself  to  Me,"  thou 
sayest,  "Amen  !  Lord,  I  trust"  ;  thou  hast  opened  the  door.  What  we 
call  faith — by  which  we  simply  mean  the  yielding  of  ourselves  to  Him, 
and  the  leaning  upon  His  finished  work  and  His  mighty  love  and  His 
Divine  person  for  our  salvation  and  our  purity  and  our  all—  is  the  opening 
of  the  door.  We  open  when  in  faith  we  yield  the  will,  and  say  to  Him, 
"  Come  in,  Thou  Blessed  of  the  Father  ! " 

And  oh  !  is  it  not  plain  that  that  simple  condition  is  a  condition  not 
imposed  by  any  arbitrary  action  on  His  part,  but  a  condition  indispensable 
from  the  very  nature  of  the  case  ?  A  man  cannot  get  these  Divine  blessings 
if  He  does  not  want  them.  You  take  a  hermetically  sealed  bottle,  and  put 
it  into  the  sea  ;  it  may  float  about  in  mid-ocean  for  a  century,  surrounded  by  a 
shoreless  ocean,  and  it  will  be  as  dry  and  empty  inside  at  the  end  as  it  was 
at  the  beginning.  So  you  and  I  float,  live,  move,  and  have  our  being  in 
that  great  ocean  of  the  Divine  love  in  Christ ;  but  you  can  cork  up  your 
hearts,  and  wax  them  over  with  an  impenetrable  cover,  through  which  that 
grace  does  not  come.  And  you  do  do  it,  some  of  you.  If  you  are  doing 
that,  your  heart  must  remain  barred  to  Flis  entrance.  There  is  nothing  for 
it  but  that  if  you  do  not  let  Christ  come  in,  He  must  stop  outside ;  and  if  He 
stops  outside,  there  stop  out  with  Him  all  the  blessings  that  He  brings.  If 
you  do  not  believe  yourself  to  be  a  sinner,  you  will  never  feel  that  you  want 
pardon ;  if  you  do  not  feel  that  you  want  pardon,  you  will  never  take  Him 
for  your  Saviour  ;  if  you  do  not  take  Him  for  your  Saviour,  you  cannot  be 
saved.  God  cannot  do  it,  and  Christ  cannot  do  it.  They  have  done  all 
they  could  for  you  ;  and  He  stands  before  the  world  and  says:  "Judge,  I  pray 
you,  betwixt  Me  and  My  vineyard.  What  could  have  been  done  more  to  it 
that  I  have  not  done  in  it  ?  "  He  has  done  all  He  could.  Oh,  my  brother ! 
open  the  door,  and  the  great  rejoicing  tide  shall  flow  in  and  flood  your  heart. 
"  Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  thou  shall  be  saved." 

219 


HOST  AND  GUEST  IN  ONE. 

He  brought  fne  to  the  banqueting-house,  and  his  banner  over  me  was 
love. — Song  of  S.  ii.  4. 

I 

.  _     The  entrance  of  Jesus  Christ  into  the  opened  heart  is  no  mere 

*  metaphor,  and  it  is  not  beweakened  down  to  the  preseiice  In  the 
spirit  of  the  influence  of  His  truth,  or  anything  of  that  sort.  There  is  a  deep 
and  substantial  reality  in  the  presence  within  a  believing  heart  of  Jesus 
Christ  Himself.  It  is  the  central  gift  and  promise  of  the  Gospel,  "  that  Christ 
may  dwell  in  your  hearts  by  faith."  The  old  question  that  tortured  men  in 
early  days,  "Will  God  in  very  deed  dwell  with  men  upon  the  earth?"  is 
answered  now  ;  and  we  have  not  only  a  Christ  that  was  once  incarnated  in  the 
son  of  a  virgin  to  look  back  upon,  but  we  have  a  Christ  who  dwells  in  our 
human  spirits,  if  we  open  them  by  faith  for  His  entrance.  He  Himself  is 
the  greatest  of  His  gifts,  and  where  He  comes  there  spring,  at  the  touch 
of  His  foot,  all  gracious,  noble,  and  good  things  in  the  human  heart.  He 
never  comes  empty-handed,  but  when  He  enters  in  He  endows  the  soul  with 
untold  riches. 

We  have  also  Christ's  presence  as  a  Guest.  How  wonderful  that  is!  "I 
will  come  in  and  sup  with  him."  All  sweet  and  familiar  intercourse  may  be 
ours.  It  is  even  so  that  He,  the  glorious  Lord,  whose  majesty,  as  revealed 
to  John,  prostrated  even  the  disciple,  who  had  leaned  on  His  bosom  at 
supper,  as  one  dead,  will  bring  all  these  splendours  into  this  poor  heart  ! 
He  will  come,  and  that  as  our  Guest.  What  great  and  wonderful  things  are 
contained  in  that  assurance  !  Can  we  present  anything  to  Him  that  He  can 
partake  of  ?  Yes  !  We  may  give  Him  our  service,  and  He  will  take  that ; 
we  may  give  Him  our  love,  and  He  will  regard  it  as  an  odour  of  a  sweet 
smell,  and  as  dainty  and  delightsome  food. 

Christ  comes  to  us  not  only  as  a  Guest,  but  also  as  Host : — "  I  will  sup 
with  him  and  he  %vith  Ale.^^  As  when  they  asked  Him  to  the  rustic  wed- 
ding at  Cana  of  Galilee,  He  came  as  the  Guest,  but  presently  He  turned  the 
water  of  earthly  felicity  into  the  wine  of  heavenly  gladness,  and  was  Him- 
self the  Provider  of  the  feast.  As  upon  that  night  at  Emmaus,  when  the 
two  wearied  men  asked  the  wearied  Companion  of  their  journey  to  come  in 
and  stay  with  them  at  their  humble  meal,  and  He  took  His  place  at  the  table 
as  an  invited  Guest,  but  in  a  moment  assumed  the  rdle  of  the  Master  of  the 
house,  and  broke  the  bread  and  blessed  it,  so  making  their  gift  to  Him  into 
His  to  them.  So  when  He  comes  into  your  heart,  and  you  offer  Him  your 
poor  fare,  your  loyalty  and  your  love  and  your  faith  and  your  service,  He 
gives  you  the  powers  and  the  resources  to  love  and  serve  Him ;  and  sliil  more, 
Ke  gives  you  Himself,  the  Bread  of  God  that  came  down  from  heaven, 
that  your  soid  may  feed  upon  that,  and  be  satisfied  and  glad.  As  when 
some  great  prince  offers  to  honour  a  poor  subject  with  his  presence,  and  let 
him  provide  some  insignificant  portion  of  the  entertainment,  whilst  all  the 
substantial  and  costly  parts  of  it  come  in  the  retinue  of  the  monarch,  from 
the  palace. 

220 


CHRIST  GLORIFIED  IN  HIS  SAINTS. 

He  shall  come  to  be  glorified  in  His  saittts. — 2  Thess.  i.  lO. 

The  two  Epistles  to  the  Thessalonians,  which  are  the  Apostle's 
^  "  '  earliest  letters,  both  give  very  great  prominence  to  the 
thought  of  the  second  coming  of  our  Lord  to  judgment.  In  the  immediate 
context  we  have  that  coming  described,  with  circumstances  of  majesty  and 
of  terror.  He  "shall  be  revealed  ....  with  the  angels  of  His  power." 
"  Flaming  fire  "  shall  herald  His  coming  ;  vengeance  shall  be  in  His  hands  ; 
punishment  shall  follow  His  sentence  ;  everlasting  destruction  shall  be  the 
issue  of  evil  confronted  with  "  the  face  of  the  Lord  '" — for  so  the  words  in 
the  previous  verse,  rendered  "the  presence  of  the  Lord"  might  more 
accurately  be  translated. 

And  all  these  facts  and  images  are,  as  it  were,  piled  up  in  one  half  of  the 
Apostle's  sky,  as  in  thunderous  lurid  masses  ;  and  on  the  other  side  there 
is  the  pure  blue  and  the  peaceful  sunshine.  For  all  this  terror  and 
destruction,  and  flashing  fire,  and  punitive  vengeance  come  to  pass  in  the 
day  when  "  He  shall  come  to  be  glorified  in  His  saints,  and  to  be  wondered 
at  in  all  them  that  believe." 

Christ  is  glorified  in  the  men  who  are  glorified  in  Christ.  If  you  look  on 
a  couple  of  verses  you  will  find  that  the  Apostle  returns  to  this  thought, 
and  expresses  in  the  clearest  fashion  the  reciprocal  character  of  that 
"glorifying"  of  which  he  has  been  speaking.  "The  name  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,"  says  he,  "may  be  glorified  in  you,  and  ye  in  Him." 

So,  then,  glorifying  has  a  double  meaning.  There  is  a  double  process 
involved.  It  means  either  "to  make  glorious"  or  "to  manifest  as  being 
glorious."  And  men  are  glorified,  in  the  former  sense,  in  Christ,  that  Christ 
in  them  may,  in  the  latter  sense,  be  glorified.  He  makes  them  glorious  by 
imparting  to  them  of  the  lustrous  light  and  flashing  beauty  of  His  own 
perfect  character,  in  order  that  that  light,  received  into  their  natures,  and 
streaming  out  at  last  conspicuously  manifest  from  their  redeemed  perfectness, 
may  redound  to  the  praise  and  the  honour,  before  a  whole  universe,  of 
Kim  who  has  thus  endued  their  weakness  with  His  own  strength,  and 
transmitted  their  corruptibility  into  His  own  immortality.  We  are  glorified 
in  Christ  in  some  partial,  and,  alas  !  sinfully  fragmentary  manner  here  ;  we 
shall  be  so  perfectly  in  that  day.  And  when  we  are  thus  glorified  in  Him, 
then — wondrous  thought ! — even  we  shall  be  able  to  manifest  Him  as 
glorious  before  some  gazing  eyes,  which  without  us  would  have  seen  Him 
as  less  fair.  Dim,  and  therefore  great  and  blessed,  thoughts  about  what 
men  may  become  are  involved  in  such  words.  The  highest  end,  the  great 
purpose  of  the  Gospel  and  of  all  God's  dealings  with  us  in  Christ  Jesus  is  to 
make  us  like  our  Lord.  As  we  have  borne  the  image  of  the  earthly  we 
shall  also  bear  the  image  of  the  heavenly.  "We,  beholding  the  glory,  are 
changed  into  the  glory." 

221 


"YE  ARE  MY  WITNESSES." 

And  for  their  sakes  I  sanctify  Myself  that  they  themselves  also  may  be 
sanctified  in  truth. — ^JoHN  xvii.  19. 

.  q      The  glorifyinjT  of  men  in  Christ,  which  is  the  goal  and  highest 

"  ■  end  of  Christ's  Cross  and  Passion  and  of  all  God's  dealings, 
is  accomplished  only  because  Christ  dwells  in  the  men  whom  He  glorifies. 
And  as  is  the  Son  with  the  Father,  participant  of  mutual  and  reciprocal 
glorification,  so  is  the  Christian  with  Christ,  glorified  in  Him  and  therefore 
glorifying  Him. 

What  may  be  involved  therein  of  perfect  moral  purity,  of  enlarged 
faculties  and  powers,  of  a  bodily  frame  capable  of  manifesting  all  the  finest 
issues  of  a  perfect  spirit,  it  is  not  for  us  to  say.  These  things  are  great, 
being  hid<.1en  ;  and  are  hidden  because  they  are  great.  But  whatever  may 
be  the  lofty  heights  of  Christlikeness  to  which  we  shall  attain,  all  shall 
come  from  the  indwelling  Lord  who  fills  us  with  His  own  Spirit. 

And  then,  according  to  this  great  teaching,  this  glorified  humanity, 
perfected  and  separated  from  all  imperfection,  and  helped  into  all  sym- 
metrical unfolding  of  dormant  possibilities,  shall  be  the  highest  glory  of 
Christ  even  in  that  day  when  He  comes  in  His  glory  and  sits  upon  the 
throne  of  His  glory  with  His  holy  angels  with  Him.  One  would  have 
thought  that  if  the  Apostle  wanted  to  speak  of  the  glorifying  of  Jesus  Christ, 
he  would  have  pointed  to  the  Great  White  Throne,  His  majestic  Divinity, 
the  solemnities  of  His  judicial  office  ;  but  he  passes  by  all  these,  and  says, 
"  Nay  !  the  highest  glory  of  the  Christ  lies  here,  in  the  men  whom  He  has 
made  to  share  His  own  nature." 

The  artist  is  known  by  his  work.  You  stand  in  front  of  some  great 
picture,  or  you  listen  to  some  great  symphony,  or  you  read  some  great 
book,  and  you  say,  "  This  is  the  glory  of  Ratfaelle,  Beethoven,  Shakespeare." 
Christ  points  to  His  saints,  and  He  says,  "  Behold  My  handiwork  !  Ye 
are  My  witnesses.     This  is  what  I  can  do." 

But  tne  relation  between  Christ  and  His  saints  is  far  deeper  and  more 
intimate  than  simply  the  relation  between  the  artist  and  his  work  ;  for  all 
the  flashing  light  of  moral  beauty,  of  intellectual  perfectness  which  the 
Christian  man  can  hope  to  receive  in  the  future  is  but  the  light  of  the  Christ 
that  dwells  in  them,  "and  of  whose  fulness  all  they  have  received." 
Like  some  poor  vapour,  in  itself  white  and  colourless,  which  lies  in  the 
eastern  sky  there,  and  as  the  sun  rises  is  flushed  up  into  a  miracle  of  rosy 
beauty,  because  it  has  caught  the  light  amongst  its  flaming  threads  and 
vaporous  substance,  so  we,  in  ourselves  pale,  ghostly,  colourless  as  the 
mountains  when  the  Alpine  snow  passes  oft"  them,  being  recipient  of  an 
indwelling  Christ,  shall  blush  and  flame  in  beauty.  "Then  shall  the 
righteous  blaze  forth  like  the  sun  in  My  Father's  Kingdom."  Or,  riilher, 
they  are  not  suns  shining  by  their  own  light,  but  moons  reflecting  the  light 
of  Christ,  who  is  their  Light. 

And  perchance  some  eyes,  incapable  of  beholding  the  sun,  may  be  aljle 
to  look  undazzled  upon  the  sunshine  in  the  cloud,  and  some  eyes  that  could 
not  discern  the  glory  of  Christ  as  it  shines  in  His  face,  as  the  sun  shineth 
in  its  strength,  may  not  be  too  weak  to  behold  and  delight  in  the  light  as  it 
is  reflected  from  the  face  of  His  servants.  At  all  events,  He  shall  come  to 
be  gloritied  in  the  saints  whom  He  has  made  glorious. 

222 


MIRACLES  OF  GRACE. 

It  shall  be  to  them  a  renown,  in  the  day  that  I  shall  be  glorified. — 
EzEK.  xxxix.  13. 

The  transformation  of  men  is  the  great  miracle  and  marvel  of 
_u^  .  (^|^j.jg|.'g  power.  "He  shall  come  to  be  admired" — which 
word  is  employed  in  its  old  English  signification,  "to  be  wondered  at" — 
"in  all  them  that  believe."  So  fair  and  lovely  is  He  that  He  needs  but 
to  be  recognised  for  what  He  is  in  order  to  be  glorified.  So  great  and 
stupendous  are  His  operations  in  redeeming  love  that  they  need  but  to 
be  beheld  to  be  the  object  of  wonder.  "  His  name  shall  be  called 
Wonderful."  And  wonderfully  the  energy  of  His  redeeming  and  sanctifying 
grace  shall  then  have  wrought  itself  out  to  its  legitimate  end.  There  you 
get  the  crowning  marvel  of  marvels,  and  the  highest  'of  miracles.  He  did 
wonderful  works  upon  earth  which  we  rightly  call  miraculous — things  to  be 
wondered  at  ;  but  the  highest  of  all  His  wonders  is  the  wonder  that  takes 
such  material  as  you  and  me,  and  by  such  a  process  and  on  such  conditions, 
simply  because  we  trust  Him,  evolves  such  marvellous  forms  of  beauty  and 
perfectness  from  us.      "  He  is  to  be  wondered  at  in  all  them  that  believe." 

Such  results  from  such  material !  Chemists  tell  us  that  the  black  bit  of 
coal  in  your  grate  and  the  diamond  on  your  finger  are  varying  forms  of  the 
one  substance.  What  about  a  power  that  shall  take  all  the  black  coals  in 
the  world  and  transmute  them  into  flashing  diamonds,  prismatic  with  the 
reflected  light  that  comes  from  His  face  and  made  gems  on  His  strong  right 
hand  ?  The  universe  shall  wonder  at  such  results  from  such  material,  at 
the  process  by  which  they  were  accomplished,  wondering  at  the  depth  of 
His  pity,  revealed  all  the  more  pathetically  now  from  the  Great  White 
Throne,  which  casts  such  a  light  on  the  Cross  of  Calvary  ;  wondering  at  the 
long,  weary  path  which  He  who  is  now  declared  to  be  the  Judge  humbled 
Himself  to  travel  in  the  quest  of  these  poor  sinful  souls  whom  He  has  thus 
redeemed  and  glorified.  The  miracle  of  miracles  is  redeeming  love  ;  and 
the  high-water  mark  of  Christ's  wonders  is  touched  in  this  fact,  that  out  of 
men  He  makes  saints,  and  out  of  saints  He  makes  perfect  likenesses  of 
Himself. 

There  will  be  spectators  of  this  glory.  To  whomsoever  in  the  whole 
universe  Christ  at  that  Great  Day  shall  be  manifested,  to  them,  whoever 
they  be,  will  His  glory,  in  His  glorified  saints,  be  a  revelation  beyond  what 
they  have  known  before.  "  Every  eye  shall  see  Him."  And  whatsoever 
ej'es  look  upon  Him,  then  on  His  throne,  they  shall  behold  the  attendant 
courtiers  and  the  assessors  of  His  judgment,  and  see  in  them  the  manifestation 
of  His  own  lustrous  light. 

We  need  not  speculate  ;  it  is  better  not  to  enter  into  details.  But  this, 
at  least,  is  clear,  that  that  solemn  winding  up  of  the  long,  mysterious,  sad, 
blood-  and  tear-stained  history  of  man  upon  the  earth  is  to  be  an  object  of 
interest  and  a  higher  revelation  of  God  to  other  creatures  than  those  that 
dwell  upon  the  earth  ;  and  we  may  well  believe  that  for  that  moment,  at  all 
events,  the  centre  of  the  universe,  which  draws  the  thoughts  of  all  thinking, 
and  the  eyes  of  all  seeing,  creatures  to  it  shall  be  that  valley  of  judgment 
wherein  sits  the  Man  Christ  and  judges  men,  and  round  Him  the  flashing 
reflectors  of  His  glory  in  the  person  of  His  saints. 

223 


FAITH  THE   PATH  TO   GLORY. 

He  shall  come  ,  ,  .  to  be  marvelled  at  in  all  thetn  that  believed. — 
2  Thess.  i.  lo. 

That  is  to  say,  they  who  on  earth  were  His,  consecrated  and 
yff"8  .  jjg^roted  to  Him,  and  in  some  humble  measure  partaking  even 
here  of  His  reflected  beauty  and  imparted  righteousness, — these  are  they 
in  whom  He  shall  be  glorified.  They  who  "believed"  :  poor,  trembling, 
struggling,  fainting  souls,  that  here  on  earth,  in  the  midst  of  many  doubts 
and  temptations,  clasped  His  hand  ;  and  howsoever  tremulously,  yet  truly 
put  their  trust  in  Him,  these  are  they  in  whom  He  shall  *' be  wondered  at." 
The  simple  act  of  faith  knits  us  to  the  Lord.  If  we  trust  Him,  He  comes 
into  our  hearts  here,  and  begins  to  purify  us  and  to  make  us  like  Himself; 
and,  if  that  be  so,  and  we  keep  hold  of  Him,  we  shall  finally  share  in  His 
glory. 

What  a  hope,  what  an  encouragement,  what  a  stimulus  and  exhortation 
to  humble  and  timorous  souls  there  is  in  that  great  word,  "In  all  them 
that  beheved"  !  Howsoever  imperfect,  still  they  shall  be  kept  by  the 
power  of  God  unto  that  final  salvation.  And  when  He  comes  in  His  glory, 
not  one  shall  be  wanting  that  put  their  trust  in  Him.  It  will  take  them  all, 
each  in  his  several  way  reflecting  it,  to  set  forth  adequately  the  glory.  As 
many  diamonds  round  a  central  light,  which  from  each  facet  give  off  a 
several  ray  and  a  definite  colour,  so  all  that  circle  round  Christ,  and  par- 
taking of  His  glory,  will  each  receive  it,  transmit  it,  and  so  manifest  it 
in  a  different  fashion.  And  it  needs  the  innumerable  company  of  the 
redeemed,  each  a  several  perfectness,  to  set  forth  all  the  fulness  of  the 
Christ  that  dwells  in  us. 

So,  beginning  with  simple  faith  in  Him,  partially  receiving  the  beauty 
of  His  transforming  Spirit,  seeking  here  on  earth  by  assimilation  to  the 
Master  in  some  humble  measure  to  adorn  the  doctrine  and  to  glorify 
the  Christ,  we  may  hope  that  each  blackness  shall  be  all  changed  into 
brightness,  our  limitations  done  away  with,  our  weakness  lifted  into 
rejoicing  strength  ;  and  that  we  shall  be  like  Him,  seeing  Him  as  He  is, 
and,  glorified  in  Him,  shall  glorify  Him  before  the  universe. 

You  and  I  will  be  there.  Choose  whether  He  shall  be  revealed  and  the 
light  of  His  face  be  to  you  like  a  sword  whose  flashing  edge  means  destruc- 
tion, or  whether  the  light  of  His  face  shall  fall  upon  your  heart,  because  you 
love  Him  and  trust  Him,  like  the  sunshine  on  the  Alpine  snow,  lifting  it 
to  a  more  lustrous  whiteness,  and  tinging  it  with  an  ethereal  hue  of  more 
than  earthly  beauty,  which  no  other  power  but  an  indwelling  Christ  can 
give.  He  shall  come  with  "everlasting  destruction  from  the  face  "  ;  and 
"  He  shall  come  to  be  glorified  in  His  saints,  and  to  be  wondered  at  in  all 
them  that  believed."  Choose  which  of  the  two  shall  be  your  portion  in 
that  day. 

224 


CITIZENSHIP    IN   THE   HEAVENS. 

Our  citizenship  is  in  heaven  ;  from  whence  also  we  wait  for  a  Saviour, 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. — Phil.  iii.  20. 

August  12  T^^^  figure  of  citizenship  is,  of  course,  originally  drawn  from 
the  registers  of  the  triLes  of  Israel.  In  that  use,  tliough  not 
without  a  glance  at  some  higher  meaning,  it  appears  in  the  Old  Testament, 
where  we  read  of  "  those  who  are  written  among  them  living  in  Jerusalem  "  ; 
or  "are  written  in  the  writing  of  the  house  of  Israel."  And  the  thought 
that  comes  out  of  this  great  metaphor  is  that  all  of  us,  if  we  are  Christian 
people,  belong  to  another  polity,  another  order  of  things  than  that  in  which 
our  outward  lives  are  spent.  And  the  plain,  practical  conclusion  that  comes 
from  it  is,  cultivate  the  sense  of  belonging  to  another  order.  Just  as 
it  swelled  the  heart  of  a  Macedonian  Philippian  with  pride,  when  he 
thought  that  he  did  not  belong  to  the  semi-barbarous  people  round  about 
him,  but  that  his  name  was  written  in  the  books  that  lay  in  the  Capitol  of 
Rome,  so  should  we  cultivate  that  sense  of  belonging  to  another  order.  It 
will  make  our  work  here  none  the  worse,  but  it  will  fill  our  lives  with  the 
sense  of  nobler  affinities,  and  point  our  eftbrts  to  grander  work  than  any  that 
belongs  to  "the  things  that  are  seen  and  temporal."  Just  as  the  little 
groups  of  Enghshmen  in  treaty-ports  own  no  allegiance  to  the  laws  of  the 
country  in  which  they  live,  but  are  governed  by  English  statutes,  so  we  have 
to  take  our  orders  from  headquarters  to  which  we  have  to  report.  Men  in 
our  Colonies  get  their  instructions  from  Downing-street,  The  officials  there, 
appointed  by  the  Home  Government,  think  more  of  what  they  will  say 
about  them  at  Westminster  than  of  what  they  say  about  them  at  ^lelbourne. 
So  we  are  citizens  of  another  country,  and  have  to  obey  the  laws  of  our  own 
kingdom,  and  not  those  of  the  soil  on  which  we  dwell.  Never  mind  about 
the  opinions  of  men,  the  battlements  of  the  people  in  the  land  you  live  in. 
To  us,  the  main  thing  is  that  we  be  acceptable,  well-pleasing  unto  Him. 
Are  you  solitary  ?  Cultivate  the  sense  of,  in  your  solitude,  being  a  member 
of  a  great  community  that  stretches  through  all  the  ages,  and  binds  into  one 
the  inhabitants  of  eternity  and  of  time. 

Remember  that  this  citizensliip  in  the  heavens  is  the  highest  honour  that 
can  be  conferred  upon  a  man.  The  patricians  of  Venice  used  to  have  their 
names  inscribed  upon  what  was  called  the  "golden  book  "  that  was  kept  in 
the  Doge's  palace.  If  our  names  are  written  in  the  book  of  gold  in  the 
heavens,  then  we  have  higher  dignities  than  any  that  belong  to  the  fleeting 
chronicles  of  this  passing,  vain  world-  So  we  can  accept  with  equanimity 
evil  report  or  good  report,  and  can  acquiesce  in  a  wholesome  obscurity,  and 
be  careless  though  our  names  appear  on  no  human  records  and  fill  no 
trumpet  of  fame  blown  by  earthly  cheeks.  Intellectual  power,  wealth, 
gratified  ambition,  and  all  the  other  things  that  men  set  before  them  are 
small  indeed  compared  with  the  honour,  with  the  blessedness,  with  the 
repose  and  satisfaction  that  attend  the  conscious  possession  of  citizenship  in 
the  heavens.  Let  us  lay  to  heart  the  great  words  of  the  Master,  which  put 
a  cooling  hand  on  all  the  feverish  ambitions  of  earth  :  "  In  this  rejoice,  not 
that  the  spirits  are  subject  unto  you,  but  rather  rejoice  that  your  names  are 
written  in  Heaven." 

225  Q 


NAMES   IN  THE  BOOK  OF  LIFE. 

The  rest  of  my  fellow-workers ,  whose  names  are  in  the  Book  of  Life, — 
Phil.  iv.  3. 

Paul  was  as  gentle  as  he  was  strong.     Winsome  courtesy  and 
Au^st  13. 

delicate  considerateness  lay  in  his  character,  in  beautiful  union 

with  fiery  impetuosity   and  undaunted  tenacity  of  conviction.     We   have 

here  a  remarkable  instance  of  his  quick  apprehension  of  the  possible  efifects 

of  his  words,   and  of  his  nervous  anxiety  not  to  wound  even  unreasonable 

susceptibilities. 

He  had  had  occasion  to  mention  three  of  his  fellow-workers,  and  he 
wishes  to  associate  with  them  others  whom  he  does  not  purpose  to  name. 
Lest  any  of  these  should  be  ofifended  by  the  omission,  he  soothes  them  with 
this  graceful,  half-apologetic  reminder  that  their  names  are  inscribed  on  a 
better  page  than  his.  It  is  as  if  he  had  said,  "Do  not  mind  though  I 
do  not  mention  you  individually.  You  can  well  afford  to  be  anonymous 
in  my  letter  since  your  names  are  inscribed  in  the  Book  of  Life." 

There  is  a  consolation  for  obscure  good  people,  who  need  not  expect 
to  live  except  in  two  or  three  loving  hearts  ;  and  whose  names  will  only  be 
preserved  on  mouldering  tombstones,  that  will  convey  no  idea  to  the  reader. 
We  may  well  dispense  with  other  commemoration  if  we  have  this. 

It  is  hard  to  realise  the  essentially  individualising  and  isolating  character 
of  our  relation  to  Jesus  Christ.  But  we  shall  never  come  to  the  heart  of  the 
blessedness  and  the  power  of  His  Gospel  unless  we  translate  all  "  us  "-es  and 
"  everyones  "  and  "  worlds  "  in  Scripture  into  "  I  "  and  "  me,"  and  can  say 
not  only  He  gives  Himself  to  be  "  the  propitiation  for  the  sins  of  the  whole 
world,"  but  "  He  loved  me  and  gave  Himself  for  me.'''  The  same  individu- 
ilising  love  which  is  manifested  in  that  mighty  universal  Atonement,  if  we 
rightly  understand  it,  is  manifested  in  all  His  dealings  with  us.  One  by  one 
we  come  under  His  notice  ;  the  Shepherd  tells  His  sheep  singly  as  they  pass 
out  through  the  gate  or  into  the  fold.  He  knows  them  all  by  name.  "I 
have  called  thee  by  INIy  name  ;  thou  art  Mine." 

Lift  up  your  eyes  and  behold  who  made  all  these — the  countless  host  of 
the  nightly  stars.  The  nebulae  to  our  eyes  are  blazing  suns  and  planets  to 
His.  "  He  telleth  the  number  of  the  stars  ;  He  calleth  them  all  by  name  by 
the  greatness  of  His  power,  for  that  He  is  strong  in  might ;  not  one  faileth." 
So  we  may  nestle  in  the  protection  of  His  hand,  sure  of  a  separate  place  in 
His  knowledge  and  His  heart. 

226 


DIVINE  INDIVIDUALISING  KNOWLEDGE  AND  CARE. 

Fear  not:  I  have  redeemed  thee  ;  I  have  called  thee  by  thy  name  ;  thou  art 
Mine. — Isa.  xliii.  I. 

.        ^  ,.     In  the  Old  Testament  the  Book  of  Life  is  called  "  Thy  Book," 
Augnst  14.  ^  ' 

in  the  New  it  is  called  "  the  Lamb's  Book."     That  is  of  a  piece 

with  the  whole  relation  of  the  New  to  the  Old,  and  of  Jesus  Christ,  the 

Incarnate  Word  and  Manifester  of  God,  to  the  Jehovah  revealed  in  former 

ages.     For,  unconditionally,  and  without  thought  of  irreverence  or  idolatry, 

the  New  Testament  lifts  over  bodily,  and  confers  upon  Jesus  Christ  the 

attributes  which  the  Old  jealously  preserved  as  belonging  only  to  Jehovah. 

And  thus  Christ,   the  Manifester  of  God,  and  the  Mediator  to  us  of  all 

Divine  powers  and  blessings,  takes  the  book  and  makes  the  entries  in  it. 

Each  man  of  us,  as  in  your  ledgers,  has  a  page  to  himself.     His  account  is 

opened,  and  is  not  confused  with  other  entries.     There  is  individualising 

love  and  care,  and,  as  the  basis  of  both,  individualising  knowledge.     My 

name,  the  expression  of  my  individual  being,  stands  there.     Christ  does  not 

deal  with  me  as  one  of  a  crowd,  nor  fling  out  blessings  broadcast,  that  I  may 

grasp  them  in  the  midst  of  a  multitude  if  I  choose  to  put  out  a  hand,  but 

He  deals  with  each  of  us  singly,  as  if  there  were  not  any  beings  in  the  world 

but  He  and  I,  our  two  selves,  all  alone. 

Deliverance  and  security  are  the  results  of  that  individualising  care.  In 
one  of  the  Old  Testament  instances  of  the  use  of  this  metaphor  we  read  that, 
in  the  great  day  of  calamity  and  sorrow,  "Thy  people  shall  be  delivered, 
even  every  one  that  is  written  in  Thy  Bock."  So  we  need  not  dread  any- 
thing if  our  names  are  there.  The  sleepless  King  will  read  the  Book,  and 
will  never  forget,  nor  forget  to  help  and  succour,  His  poor  servants. 

But  there  are  two  other  variations  of  this  thought  in  the  Old  Testament 
even  more  tenderly  suggestive  of  that  individualising  care  and  strong  sufficient 
love  than  the  emblem  of  "  the  Book."  We  read  that  when,  in  the  exercise 
of  his  official  functions,  the  high  priest  passed  into  the  tabernacle,  he  wore 
upon  his  breast,  near  the  seat  of  personality  and  the  home  of  love,  the  names 
of  the  tribes  graven,  and  that  the  same  names  were  written  on  his  shoulders, 
as  if  guiding  the  exercise  of  his  power.  So  we  may  think  of  ourselves  as 
lying  near  the  beatings  of  His  heart,  and  as  individually  the  objects  of  the 
v/ork  of  His  almighty  arm.  Nor  is  this  alL  For  there  is  yet  another  and 
still  tenderer  application  of  the  figure,  when  we  read  of  the  Divine  voice  as 
saying  to  Israel,  "I  have  graven  thee  on  the  palms  of  My  hands."  The 
name  of  each  who  loves  and  trusts  and  serves  is  written  there — printed  deep 
in  the  flesh  of  the  Sovereign  Christ.  We  bear  in  our  bodies  the  marks,  the 
stig77iaia,  that  tell  whose  slaves  we  are — "the  marks  of  the  Lord  Jesus." 
And  He  bears  in  His  body  the  marks  that  tell  who  His  servants  are. 

227 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIFE. 

A  book  of  remembrance  was  written  before  Him,  for  them,  that  feared  the 
Lord,  and  that  thought  upon  His  Name, — Mal.  iii.  l6. 

The  "Book  of  Life,"  it  is  called  in  the  New  Testament.     Its 
^  ^       ■   designation  in  the  Old  might  as  well  be  translated  "  the  book 
of  living  "  as  "  the  book  of  life."     It  is  a  register  of  the  men  who  are  truly 
alive. 

Now,  that  is  but  an  imaginative  way  of  putting  the  commonplace  of  the 
New  Testament,  that  anything  which  is  worth  calling  life  comes  to  us,  not 
by  creation  or  physical  generation,  but  by  being  born  again  through  faith  in 
Jesus  Christ,  and  by  receiving  into  our  else  dead  spirits  the  life  which  He 
bestows  upon  all  them  that  trust  Him.  In  the  New  Testament  "life"  is 
far  more  than  "being";  far  more  than  physical  existence;  removed  by  a 
whole  world  from  these  lower  conceptions,  and  finding  its  complete  explana- 
tion only  in  the  fact  that  the  soul  which  is  knit  to  God  by  conscious  surrender, 
love,  aspiration,  and  obedience,  is  the  only  soul  that  really  lives.  All  else 
is  death — death  !  He  "  that  liveth  in  pleasure  is  dead  while  he  liveth." 
The  ghastly  imagination  of  one  of  our  poets,  of  the  dead  man  standing  on 
the  deck  pulling  at  the  ropes  by  the  side  of  the  living,  is  true  in  a  very  deep 
sense.  In  spite  of  all  the  feverish  activities,  the  manifold  vitalities,  of 
practical  and  intellectual  life  in  the  world,  the  deepest,  truest  life  of  every 
man  who  is  parted  from  God  by  alienation  of  will,  by  indifference,  and 
neglect  of  love,  lies  sheeted  and  sepulchred  in  the  depths  of  his  own  heart. 
Brother,  there  is  no  life  worth  calling  life,  none  to  which  that  august  name 
can  without  degradation  be  applied,  except  the  complete  life  of  body,  soul, 
and  spirit,  in  lowly  obedience  to  God  in  Christ.  The  deepest  meaning  of 
the  work  of  the  Saviour  is  that  He  comes  into  a  dead  world,  and  breathes 
into  the  bones — very  many  and  very  dry— the  breath  of  His  own  life. 
Christ  has  died  for  us  ;  Christ  will  live  in  us  if  we  will ;  and,  unless  He 
does,  we  are  twice  dead. 

Do  not  put  away  that  thought  as  if  it  were  a  mere  pulpit  metaphor.  It 
is  a  metaphor,  but  yet  in  the  metaphor  there  lies  this  deepest  truth,  which 
concerns  us  all,  that  only  he  is  truly  himself,  and  lives  the  highest,  best,  and 
noblest  life  that  is  possible  for  him,  who  is  united  to  Jesus  Christ,  and 
drawing  from  Christ  his  own  life.  "  He  that  hath  the  Son  hath  life  :  he 
that  hath  not  the  Son  hath  not  life."  Either  my  name  and  yours  are  written 
'  in  the  Book  of  Life,  or  they  are  written  in  the  register  of  a  cemetery.  We 
have  to  make  our  choice  which. 

228 


"IS  MY  NAME  WRITTEN  THERE?" 

Another  book  was  opened,  which  is  the  Book  of  Life, — Rev.  xx.  12. 

We  read,  in  the  highly  imaginative  picture  of  the  final  judg;- 
"^'^^  '  raent,  that  when  the  thrones  are  set,  two  books  are  opened,  one 
the  Book  of  Life,  the  other  the  book  in  which  are  writcen  the  deeds  of  men, 
and  that  by  these  two  books  men  are  judged.  There  is  a  judgment  by 
conduct.  There  is  also  a  judgment  by  the  Book  of  Life,  That  is  to  say, 
the  question  at  last  comes  to  be,  "  Is  this  man's  name  written  in  that  book  ?  " 
Is  he  a  citizen  of  the  kingdom,  and  therefore  capable  of  entering  into  it? 
Has  he  the  life  from  Christ  in  his  heart  ?  Or,  in  other  words,  the  question 
is,  first,  Has  the  man  who  stands  at  the  bar  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  ?  and, 
second,  Has  he  proved  that  his  faith  is  genuine  and  real  by  the  course  of  his 
earthly  conduct  ?  These  are  the  books  from  which  the  judgment  is  made. 
We  read  further  in  that  blessed  vision — the  vision  of  the  City  of  God  "  that 
came  down  from  heaven  as  a  bride  adorned  for  her  husband  " — that  only 
they  enter  in  there  who  are  "written  in  the  Lamb's  Book  of  Life."  Only 
citizens  are  capable  of  entrance  into  the  city  ;  aliens  are  necessarily  shut 
out.  The  Lord,  when  He  writeth  up  His  people,  shall  count  that  this  man 
was  born  there,  though  he  never  trod  its  streets  while  on  earth,  and  therefore 
can  enter  into  his  native  home.  What  need  we  care  what  other  people  may 
think  about  us,  or  whether  the  "hollow  wraith  of  dying  fame"  that  comes 
like  a  nimbus  round  some  men  may  fade  wholly  or  no,  so  long  as  we  may 
be  sure  of  acknowledgment  and  praise  from  Him  from  whom  acknowledgment 
and  praise  are  precious  indeed. 

Remember  that  names  can  be  blotted  out  of  the  book.  The  metaphor 
has  often  been  pressed  into  the  service  of  a  doctrine  of  unconditional  and 
irreversible  predestination.  But,  rightly  looked  at,  it  points  in  the  opposite 
direction.  Remember  Moses's  agonised  cry,  "Blot  me  out  of  Thy  book," 
and  the  Divine  answer,  "  Him  that  sinneth  against  Me,  his  name  will  I  blot 
out  of  My  book."  And  remember  that  it  is  only  to  "  him  that  overcometh  " 
that  the  promise  is  made,  "  I  will  not  blot  him  out."  We  are  made  par- 
takers of  Christ  if  we  "hold  fast  the  beginning  of  our  confidence  firm  unto 
the  end." 

Remember  that  it  depends  upon  ourselves  whether  our  names  are  there 
or  not.  John  Buuyan  describes  the  armed  man  who  came  up  to  the  table 
where  the  man  with  the  book  and  the  inkhorn  was  seated,  and  said,  "  Set 
down  my  name."  And  you  and  I  may  do  that.  If  we  cast  ourselves  on 
Jesus  Christ,  and  yield  our  wills  to  be  guided  by  Him,  and  give  our  lives 
for  His  service,  then  He  will  write  our  names  in  His  book.  If  we  trust 
Him  we  shall  be  citizens  of  the  City  of  God,  shall  be  filled  with  the  life  of 
Christ,  shall  be  objects  of  an  individualising  love  and  care,  shall  be  accepted 
in  that  day,  and  shall  enter  in  through  the  gates  into  the  city.  "They  that 
forsake  Me  shall  be  written  on  the  earth,"  and  there  wiped  out  as  are  the 
children's  scribbles  on  the  sand  when  the  ocean  comes  up.  They  that  trust 
in  Jesus  Christ  shall  have  their  names  written  in  the  Book  of  Life,  graven 
on  the  High  Priest's  breastplate,  and  insci'ibed  on  His  mighty  hand  and  His 
faithful  heart. 

229 


PERSECUTION  FOR  CHRIST'S  SAKE. 

If  they  persecuted  Me,  they  will  also  persecute  you  ;  if  they  kept  My  word, 
they  will  keep  yours  also. — John  xv.  20. 

We  may  fairly  infer  that  in  the  reception  a  disciple  of  Christ 
August  17. 

may  expect  from  the  world,   we  have  one  of  the  points  in 

which,  very  specially,  the  likeness  of  a  true  disciple  to  the  Master  will  be 

brought  out.     If  they  have  called  Him  Beelzebub,  they  will  not  grace  us 

with   the  fine   names   of  approbation   and   flattery.     "  If  they  have  not 

received  My  sayings,"  they  will  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  yours.      "  If  ye  were  of 

the  world,  the  world  would  love  its  own."     Now,  let  me  say  a  plain  word 

about  this  matter.     That  law  is  in  a  fashion  abrogated  now.     Nineteen 

centuries  have  not  passed  in  vain.     The  "world" — meaning  thereby  the 

aggregate  of  godless  men,   "  society,"  to  use  a  modern  phrase— has  been 

largely  leavened  by  Christian  principles  and  sentiment.     An  atmosphere 

has  been  created,  else  all  these  centuries  would  have  passed  in  vain.     But 

whilst   that   is   quite   true,    and  I  suppose  in  lands  like   ours  we  do  not 

need  to  be  afraid  of  the  rougher  forms  of  the  world's  enmity,  it  does  not 

seem  to  me  that  in  substance  this  law  has  ceased  to  operate,  nor  will  it, 

until  either  the  Church  has  become  wholly  worldly — which,  thank  God !  it 

never  will  do — or  until  the  world  has  become  wholly  Christ's.     There  are 

plenty  of  evidences  round  us  that  it  still  remains  true  that  an  out-and-out 

consistency  of  Christian  conduct  shall  be  unwelcome  to  the  mass  of  society. 

You  have  only  to  look  at  the  bitter  antagonism  to  aggressive  Christianity 

which  is  manifested  in  much  of  our  popular  literature  to  see  that.     They 

used  to  burn  us  ;  they  only  sneer  at  us  nowadays  ;  but  the  sentiment  is 

pretty  much  the  same.      In  your  Christian  activity,  touch  the  social  sins  of 

this  generation,  and  you  will  see  the  claws  come  out  fast  enough,  and 

scratch  deep  enough,  for  all  the  velvet  skin  and  the  purring  that  sometimes 

is  heard.     Let  a  man  live  the  life,  and  shape  himself  .ifter  Christ's  pattern, 

and  he  will  not  miss  having  to  bear  his  share  of  the  treatment  given  to  his 

Master.     If  we  take  Him  for  our  pattern,  and  try  to  be  like  Him,  we  have 

to  make  up  our  minds  to  "go  forth  unto  Him  without  the  camp,  bearing 

His  reproach,"  and  to  live  a  godly  life  amidst  ungodly  people  ;  and  that 

will  never  be  done  without  some  experience  of  the  deep-seated  antagonism 

l>etween  the  true  disciple  and  the  world. 

230 


THE   DISCIPLE  AS   HIS    LORD. 

The  Lord  ivill perfect,  that  which  concerneth  me. — Psalm  cxxxviii.  8. 
It  is  enough  for  the  disciple  that  he  be  as  his  master,  and  the  servant  as 
his  lord. — Matt.  x.  25. 

.  .  ,0  The  disciple's  schooling  is  not  ended  until  he  has  learned  all 
that  the  master  can  teach  ;  and  the  duty  01  the  servant  is  not 
performed  until  he  has  done  all  that  the  lord  commands.  There  is  no 
adequate  end  to  the  experiences  of  the  imperfect  Christian  life  on  earth, 
except  that  of  being  wholly  assimilated  to  the  character  of  Jesus  Christ, 
So  much  accomplished,  and  so  much  unaccomphshed — the  contradiction 
between  the  two  halves  cannot  continue  for  ever.  The  likeness  of  Jesus 
Christ,  which  is  imperfectly  realised  in  a  man  here,  has  in  it  "  the  promise 
and  the  potency  "  of  a  perfect  conformity  hereafter.  Michael  Angelo  left 
several  of  his  works  with  a  part  finished  and  polished  to  the  last  point  of 
statuesque  perfection,  and  the  rest  rough  marble,  with  the  marks  of  a  tool 
upon  it  here  and  there.  The  face  or  the  form  was  half-extricated  from,  and 
half  still  embedded  in,  the  rude  and  formless  block.  You  can  see  in  Eaalbec 
a  pillar  partially  rounded  and  hewn  out  of  the  rock,  and  the  rest  of  it  still 
undelivered  from  its  environment.  So  the  Christian  life  here,  in  its  incom- 
pleteness, prophesies  of  that  which  is  to  come.  For  if  Christ  is  the  Worker, 
then  His  work  must  correspond  to  His  own  perfection.  If  He  is  our 
Master,  then  He  will  not  cease  Plis  teaching  until  we  have  learned  all  His 
**  treasures  of  wisdom  and  knowledge."  If  He  is  our  Lord,  then  we  shall 
be  perfectly  like  Himself.  Never  shall  it  be  said  of  this  man  that  "he 
began  to  build,  and  was  not  able  to  finish."  "  The  Lord  will  perfect  that 
which  concerneth  thee." 

"It  is  enough  for  the  disciple  that  he  be  as  his  master."  Is  it  not 
enough  for  the  heart,  enough  to  know  for  the  mind,  amid  all  the  dimness 
and  the  darkness  of  that  future  ?  We  know  not  what  lies  beyond  the  pass  : 
the  fair  lands  on  the  other  side  the  mountains  are  all  unseen  ;  but,  as  good 
old  Richard  Baxter  says  in  his  hymn — 

"It  is  erouiih  that  Christ  knows  all, 
And  1  shall  be  like  Him." 

If  that  likeness  is  to  be  completed  hereafter,  it  must  be  begun  here.  What- 
ever speculations  men  may  indulge  in  about  the  efifect  of  passing  beyond 
the  vale,  there  is  nothing  either  in  what  we  know  of  the  phenomenon  of 
death,  nor  in  what  Scripture  plainly  teaches,  to  warrant  the  belief  that  the 
accident  of  dying  shall  revolutionise  a  man's  attitude  to  Jesus  Christ.  And 
it  is  a  desperate  risk  to  run,  that  we  should  trust  to  begin  beyond  the  grave 
a  life  dead  against  the  life  that  was  lived  here.  We  do  know  that,  if  imper- 
fectly, we  try  to  follow  Christ  on  earth,  there  we  shall  follow  the  Lamb 
whithersoever  He  goeth.  We  do  know  that  if  here  we  enter  ourselves  in 
Christ's  school,  there  we  shall  get  our  remove  to  a  higher  form.  We  do 
know  that  if  here  the  likeness  begins,  there  it  shall  be  perfected.  As  some 
poor  bit  of  glass,  smitten  by  a  sunbeam,  blazes  with  the  light  which  it 
reflects,  so,  when  we  behold  His  countenance  "as  the  sun  shineth  in  his 
strength,"  we,  too,  "  shall  shine  like  the  sun  in  the  Heavenly  Father's 
Kingdom." 

So  the  question  comes  to  be,  "Am  I  Christ's  scholar?  Have  I  begun 
to  be  like  Him  ? "  Then  I  have  the  beginnings  of  peace  and  of  heart- 
satisfaction.     To  be  like  Christ  is  enough  for  a  man  ;  nothing  less  is. 

2-^1 


"IT  IS  THE  LORD." 

That  disciple  therefore  whom  Jesus  loved  saith   unto  Peter^  It  is  the 
Lord. — John  xxi.  7. 

A  1 19  ^^o^^  ^^^  always,  as  in  that  morning  twilight  on  the  Galilean 
'  lake,  Christ  comes  to  men.  Everywhere  He  is  present,  every- 
where revealing  Himself.  Now,  as  then,  our  eyes  are  holclen  by  our  own 
fault,  so  that  we  recognise  not  the  merciful  Presence  which  is  all  around  us. 
Now,  as  then,  it  is  they  who  are  nearest  to  Christ  by  love  who  see  Him 
first.  Now,  as  then,  they  who  are  nearest  to  Him  by  love  are  so  because 
He  loves  them,  and  because  they  know  and  believe  the  love  which  He  has 
to  them.  Only  they  who  love  see  Christ.  John,  the  Apos'Je  of  Love, 
knew  Him  first.  In  religious  matters  love  is  the  foundation  of  knowledge. 
There  is  no  way  of  knowing  a  person  except  love.  A  man  cannot  argue 
his  v\^ay  into  knowing  Christ  No  skill  in  drawing  inferences  will  avail 
him  there.  The  treasures  of  wisdom — earthly  wisdom — are  all  powerless 
in  that  region.  Man's  understanding  and  natural  capacity — let  it  keep 
itself  within  its  own  limits  and  region,  and  it  is  strong  and  good  ;  but  in  the 
region  of  acquaintance  with  God  and  Christ,  the  wisdom  of  this  world  is 
foolishness,  and  man's  understanding  is  not  the  organ  by  which  he  can 
know  Christ.  Oh  no  !  there  is  a  better  way  than  that :  "He  that  loveth 
not  knoweth  not  God,  for  God  is  love."  As  it  is,  in  feebler  measure,  with 
regard  to  our  personal  acquaintance  with  one  another,  where  it  is  not  so 
much  the  power  of  the  understanding,  or  the  quickness  of  the  perception, 
or  the  talent  and  genius  of  a  man,  that  make  the  foundation  of  his  know- 
ledge of  his  friend,  as  the  force  of  his  sympathy  and  the  depth  of  his 
affection  ;  so — with  the  necessary  modification  arising  from  the  transference 
from  earthly  acquaintance  to  the  great  Friend  and  Lover  of  our  souls  in 
heaven — so  is  it  witli  regard  to  our  knowledge  of  Christ.  Love  will  trace 
Him  everywhere.  Love's  quick  eye  pierces  through  disguises  impenetrable 
to  a  colder  scrutiny.  Love  has  in  it  a  longing  for  His  presence  which 
makes  us  eager  and  quick  to  mark  the  lightest  sign  that  He  for  whom  it 
longs  is  near,  as  the  footstep  of  some  dear  one  is  heard  by  the  sharp  ear  of 
affection  long  before  any  sound  breaks  the  sU':nce  to  those  around.  Love 
to  Him  strips  from  our  eyes  the  fdm  that  self  and  sin,  sense  and  custom, 
have  drawn  over  them.  It  is  these  which  hide  Him  from  us.  It  is  because 
men  are  so  indifferent  to,  so  forgetful  of,  their  best  Friend  that  they  fail  to 
behold  Him.  "It  is  the  Lord''  is  written  large  and  plain  on  all  things, 
but,  like  the  great  letters  on  a  map,  they  are  so  obvious,  and  fill  so  wide  a 
space,  that  they  are  not  seen.  They  who  love  Him  know  Him,  and  they 
who  know  Him  love  Him.  The  true  eye-salve  for  our  blinded  eyes  is 
applied  when  we  have  turned  with  our  hearts  to  Christ.  The  simple  might 
of  faithful  love  opens  them  to  behold  a  more  glorious  vision  than  the 
mountain  full  of  chariots  of  fire,  which  once  flamed  before  the  prophet's 
servant  of  old — even  the  august  and  ever-present  form  of  the  Lord  of  life, 
the  Lord  of  history,  the  Lord  of  providence.  When  they  who  love  Jesus 
turn  to  see  the  voice  that  speaks  with  them,  they  ever  behold  the  Son 
of  man  in  His  glory  ;  and  where  others  see  but  the  dim  beach  and  a 
mysterious  stranger,  it  is  to  their  lips  that  the  glad  cr>'  first  comes,  "It 
is  the  Lord  ! " 

232 


A  iNEW  NAME  AND  A  NEW  NATURE. 

If  any  man  is  in  Christ,  he  is  a  new  creature  :  the  old  things  are  passed 
away  ;  behold^  they  are  become  new. — 2  COR.  v.  17. 

A        1 20    J^^u^  Christ  gave  the  Apostle,  whom  He  called  to  Himself  in 

^^  '  the  early  days,  a  new  name,  in  order  to  prophesy  the  change 
which,  by  the  discipline  of  sorrow  and  the  communication  of  the  grace  of 
God,  should  pass  over  Simon  Barjona,  making  him  into  a  Peter,  the  Man 
of  Rock.  With  characteristic  independence,  Saul  chooses  for  himself  a 
new  name,  which  shall  express  the  change  that  he  feels  has  passed  over  his 
inmost  being.  True,  he  does  not  assume  it  at  his  conversion,  but  that  is 
no  reason  why  we  should  not  believe  that  he  assumes  it  because  he  is 
beginning  to  understand  what  it  is  that  has  happened  to  him  at  his 
conversion. 

The  central  heart  of  Christianity  is  the  possession  of  a  new  life, 
communicated  to  us  through  faith  in  that  Son  of  God  who  is  the  Lord 
of  the  Spirit.     Wheresoever  there  is  a  true  faith,  there  is  a  new  nature. 

Opinions  may  play  upon  the  surface  of  a  man's  soul,  like  the  moonbeams 
on  the  silver  sea,  without  raising  its  temperature  one  degree  or  sending  a 
single  beam  into  its  dark  caverns.  And  that  is  the  sort  of  Christianity  that 
satisfies  a  great  many  of  you — a  Christianity  of  opinion,  a  Christianity  of 
surface  creed,  a  Christianity  which  at  the  best  slightly  modifies  some  of  your 
outward  actions,  but  leaves  the  whole  inner  man  unchanged. 

Paul's  Christianity  meant  a  radical  change  in  his  whole  nature.  He  went 
out  of  Jerusalem  a  persecutor  ;  he  came  into  Damascus  a  Christian.  He 
rode  out  of  Jerusalem  hating,  loathing,  despising  Jesus  Christ  ;  he  groped 
his  way  into  Damascus  broken,  bruised,  clinging  contrite  to  His  feet,  and 
clasping  His  Cross  as  his  only  hope.  He  went  out  proud,  self-reliant, 
pluming  himself  upon  his  many  prerogatives,  his  blue  blood,  his  pure 
descent,  his  Rabbinical  knowledge,  his  pharisaical  training,  his  externally 
religious  earnestness,  his  pure  morality  ;  he  rode  into  Damascus  blind  in 
the  eyes,  but  seeing  in  the  soul,  and  discerning  that  all  these  things  were, 
as  he  says  in  his  strong  vehement  way,  "  but  dung  "  in  comparison  with  his 
winning  Christ.  And  his  theory  of  conversion,  which  he  preaches  in  all 
his  epistles,  is  but  the  generalisation  of  his  own  personal  experience,  which 
suddenly,  and  in  a  moment,  smote  his  old  self  to  shivers,  and  raised  up  a 
new  life,  with  new  tastes,  views,  tendencies,  aspirations,  with  new  allegiance 
to  a  new  King.  Such  changes,  so  sudden,  so  revolutionary,  cannot  be 
expected  often  to  take  place  amongst  people  who,  like  us,  have  been  listening 
to  Christian  teaching  all  our  lives.  But  unless  there  be  this  infusion  of  a 
new  life  into  men's  spirits  which  shall  make  them  love  and  long  and  aspire 
after  new  things  that  once  they  did  not  care  for,  I  know  not  why  we  should 
speak  of  them  as  being  Christians  at  all.  The  transition  is  described  by 
Paul  as  "passing  from  death  unto  life."  That  cannot  be  a  surface  thing. 
A  change  which  needs  a  new  name  must  be  a  profound  change.  Has  our 
Christianity  revolutionised  our  nature  in  any  such  fashion  ?  It  is  easy  to  be 
a  Christian  after  the  superficial  fashion  which  passes  muster  with  so  many  of 
us.  A  verbal  acknowledgment  of  belief  in  truths  which  we  never  think 
about,  a  purely  external  performance  of  acts  of  worship,  a  subscription  or 
two  winged  by  no  sympathy,  and  a  fairly  respectable  life  between  the  cloak 
of  which  all  evil  may  burrow  undetected — make  the  Christianity  of  thousands. 
Paul's  Christianity  transformed  him  ;  does  yours  transform  you  ?  If  it  dees 
not,  are  you  quite  sure  that  it  is  Christianity  at  all  ? 

a33 


SAUL  AND  PAUL. 
Saulf  who  t's  also  called  Paul,  /Hied  with  the  Holy  Ghost. — AcTS  xiii.  9. 

.  g.     Paul  is  a  Roman  name.     He  strips  himself  of  his  Jewish 

°  '   connections   and   relationships.      His   fellow-countrymen  who 

lived  amongst  the  Gentiles  were  in  the  h?.bit  of  doing  the  same  thing  ;  but 
they  carried  boi/i  their  names — their  Jewish  for  use  amongst  their  own 
people,  their  Gentile  one  for  use  amongst  Gentiles.  Paul  seems  to  have 
altogether  disused  his  old  name  of  Saul.  It  was  almost  equi\.'ilent  to 
seceding  from  Judaism.  It  is  like  the  acts  of  the  renegades  one  sometimes 
hears  of,  who  are  found  by  some  travellers  dressed  in  turban  and  flowing 
robes,  and  bearing  some  Turkish  name  ;  or  like  some  English  sailor,  lost 
to  home  and  kindred,  who  deserts  his  ship  in  some  island  of  the  Pacific, 
and  drops  his  English  name  for  some  barbarous  title,  in  token  that  he  has 
given  up  his  faith  and  his  nationality. 

The  spirit  which  led  the  Apostle  to  change  the  name  of  Saul,  with  its 
memories  of  the  royal  dignity  which,  in  the  person  of  its  great  wearer, 
had  honoured  his  tribe,  for  a  Roman  name  is  the  same  which  he  formally 
announces  as  a  deliberately  adopted  law  of  his  life:  "To  them  that  are 
without  law  I  became  as  without  law,  ....   that  I  might  gain  them  that 

are  without  law I  am  made  all  things  to  all  men,  that  I  might  by 

all  means  save  some." 

It  is  the  very  inmost  principle  of  the  Gospsl.  The  principle  that 
influenced  the  servant  in  this  comparatively  little  matter  is  the  principle 
that  influenced  the  Master  in  the  mightiest  of  all  events.  "  He  who  was 
in  the  form  of  God,  and  thought  not  equality  with  God  a  thing  to  be  eagerly 
snatched  at,  made  Himself  of  no  reputation,  and  was  found  in  fashion  as  a 
man  and  in  form  as  a  servant,  and  became  obedient  unto  death."  "  For- 
asmuch as  the  children  were  partakers  of  flesh  and  blood.  He  Himself 
likewise  took  part  of  the  same  "  ;  and  the  mystery  of  incarnation  was 
transacted,  because  when  the  Divine  would  help  men,  the  only  way  by 
which  the  infinite  love  could  reach  this  end  was  that  the  Divine  should 
become  man;  identifying  Himself  with  those  whom  He  would  help,  and 
stooping  to  the  level  of  the  humanity  that  He  would  lift. 

Sympathy  is  the  parent  of  all  wise  counsel,  because  it  is  the  parent  of 
all  true  understanding  of  our  brethren's  wants  ;  sympathy  is  the  only  thing 
to  which  people  will  listen  ;  sympathy  is  the  only  disposition  correspondent 
to  the  message  that  we  Christians  are  entrusted  with.  For  a  Christian  man  to 
carry  the  Gospel  of  infinite  condescension  to  his  fellows  in  a  spirit  other  than 
that  of  the  Master,  and  the  Gospel  which  He  speaks,  is  an  anomaly  and  a 
contradiction. 

You  remember  the  old  story  of  some  heroic  missionary  or  other  that 
wanted  to  carry  the  Gospel  of  Jrsus  Christ  amongst  captives,  and  as  there 
was  no  other  way  of  reaching  them,  he  let  himself  be  sold  for  a  slave,  and 
put  out  his  hands  to  have  the  manacles  fastened  upon  them.  It  is  the 
law  for  all  (.  hristian  service  :  become  like  them  if  you  will  help  them. 
"To  the  weak  as  weak,  all  things  to  all  men,  that  we  might  by  all  means 
save  some."  And,  my  brother,  there  was  no  obligation  on  Paul's  part  to 
do  Christian  work  which  does  not  lie  on  you. 

234 


MEMORIALS  OF  VICTORY. 

Ye  are  our  glory  and  our  joy, — i  Thess.  ii.  20* 

f  22  P-'^Ul's  name  was  that  of  his  first  convert.  He  takes  it,  as  I 
^"  '  suppose,  because  it  seemed  to  him  such  a  blessed  thing  that  at 
the  very  moment  when  he  began  to  sow,  God  helped  him  to  reap.  He 
had  gone  out  to  his  work,  no  doubt,  with  much  trembling,  with  weakness 
and  fear.  And  lo  !  here,  at  once,  the  fields  were  white  already  to  the 
harvest. 

Great  conquerors  have  been  named  from  their  victories  :  Africanus, 
Germanicus,  Nelson  of  the  Nile,  Napier  of  Magdala,  and  the  like.  Paul 
names  himself  from  the  first  victory  that  God  gave  him  to  win  ;  and  so, 
as  it  were,  carries  ever  at  his  breast  a  memorial  of  the  wonder  that  through 
him  it  had  been  given  to  preach,  and  that  not  without  success,  amongst 
the  Gentiles  "  the  unsearchable  riches  of  Christ." 

That  is  to  say,  this  man  Paul  thought  of  it  as  his  highest  honour, 
and  the  thing  best  worthy  to  be  remembered  about  his  life,  that  God  had 
helped  him  to  help  his  brethren  to  know  the  common  Master.  Is  that 
your  idea  of  the  best  thing  about  a  life  ?  What  would  you  like  to  have  for 
an  epitaph  on  your  grave,  professing  Christian?  "  He  was  rich  ;  he  made 
a  big  business."  "  Pie  was  famous  ;  he  wrote  books."  "  He  was  happy 
and  fortunate."  Or,  "He  turned  many  to  righteousness"?  "This  man 
flung  away  his  literary  tastes,  his  home  joys,  and  his  personal  ambition, 
and  chose  as  that  for  which  he  would  live,  and  by  which  he  would  fain  be 
remembered,  that  he  should  bring  dark  hearts  to  the  light  in  which  he  and 
they  together  walked  "  ? 

His  name,  in  its  commemoration  of  his  first  success,  would  act  as  a 
stimulus  to  service  and  to  hope.  No  doubt  the  Apostle,  like  the  rest  of  us, 
had  liis  times  of  indolence  and  languor,  and  his  times  of  despondency  when 
he  seemed  to  have  laboured  in  vain  and  spent  his  strength  for  nought. 
He  had  but  to  name  himself  to  find  the  antidote  to  both  the  one  and  the 
other,  and  m  the  remembrance  of  the  past  to  find  a  stimulus  for  service  for 
the  future,  and  a  stimulus  for  hope  for  the  time  to  come.  His  first  convert 
was  to  him  the  first  drop  that  predicts  the  shower,  the  first  primrose  that 
prophesies  the  wealth  of  yellow  blossoms  and  downy  green  leaves  that 
will  fill  the  woods  in  a  day  or  two.  The  first  convert  "  bears  in  his  hand 
a  glass  which  showed  many  more."  Look  at  the  workmen  in  the  streets 
trying  to  get  up  a  piece  of  the  roadway.  How  difficult  it  is  to  lever  out 
the  first  paving-stone  from  the  compacted  mass  !  But  when  once  it  has 
been  withdrawn,  the  rest  is  comparatively  easy.  We  can  understand  Paul's 
triumph  and  joy  over  this  first  stone  which  he  had  worked  out  of  the 
strongly  cemented  v/all  and  barrier  of  heathenism  ;  and  his  conviction  that 
having  thus  made  a  breach,  if  it  were  but  big  enough  to  get  the  end  of  his 
lever  in,  the  fall  of  the  whole  was  only  a  question  of  time.  I  suppose  that 
if  the  old  alchemists  had  only  turned  one  grain  of  base  metal  into  gold  the}'^ 
might  have  turned  tons,  if  only  they  had  had  the  retorts  and  the  appliances 
with  which  to  do  it.  And  so,  what  has  brought  one  man's  soul  into 
harmony  with  God,  and  given  one  man  the  true  life,  can  do  the  same  for  all 
men.  In  the  first  fruits  we  may  see  the  fields  whitening  to  the  harvest. 
Let  us  rejoice,  then,  in  any  little  work  that  God  helps  us  to  do,  and  be  sure 
that  if  so  great  be  the  joy  of  the  first  fruits,  great  beyond  speech  will  be  the 
joy  of  the  ingathering. 

235 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   PAUL'S    LIFE'S   WORK. 

/  hold  not  viy  life  of  any  account  as  dear  uttto  tnyself,  so  that  I  may 
accomplish  my  course^  and  the  ministry  which  I  received  from,  the  Lord 
Jesus. — Acts  xx.  24. 

.  .on  Paul,  contemplating  for  his  life's  work  preaching  amongst  the 
^'  Gentiles,  determines  at  the  beginning,  "I  lay  down  all  of 
v.-hich  I  used  to  be  proud.  If  my  Jewish  descent  and  privileges  stand  in  my 
way,  I  cast  t}i-*m  aside.  I  wrap  them  together  in  one  bundle,  and  toss 
them  behind  me,  that  I  may  be  the  better  able  to  help  some  to  whom  they 
would  have  hindered  my  access."  A  man  with  a  heart  will  throw  off  his 
silken  robes  that  his  arm  may  be  bared  to  rescue  and  his  feet  free  to  run  to 
succour.  The  only  way  to  help  people  is  to  go  down  to  their  level.  If  you 
want  to  bless  men  you  must  identify  yourself  with  them.  It  is  no  use 
standing  on  an  eminence  above  them,  and  patronisingly  talking  down  to 
them.  You  cannot  scold,  or  hector,  or  lecture  men  into  the  possession  and 
acceptance  of  religious  truth  if  you  take  a  position  of  superiority.  As  our 
Master  has  taught  us.  if  we  want  to  make  blind  beggars  see,  we  must  take 
the  blind  beggars  by  the  hand, 

"Paul"  means  "Uttle";  "Saul"  means  "desired."  He  abandons 
the  name  that  prophesied  of  favour  and  honour,  to  adopt  a  name  that  bears 
upon  its  very  front  a  profession  of  humility.  His  very  name  is  the  con- 
densation into  a  word  of  his  abiding  conviction.  "  I  am  less  than  the  least 
of  all  saints."  Perhaps  even  there  may  be  an  allusion  to  his  low  stature, 
which  may  be  pointed  at  in  the  sarcasm  of  his  enemies  that  his  letters  were 
strong,  though  his  bodily  presence  was  "weak."  If  he  was,  as  Monsieur 
Renan  calls  him,  "an  ugl)^  little  Jew,"  the  name  has  a  double  appropriate- 
ness. Bat,  at  all  events,  it  is  an  expression  of  the  spirit  in  which  he  sought 
to  do  his  work.  The  more  lofty  the  consciousness  of  his  vocation,  the  more 
lowly  will  a  true  man's  estimate  of  himself  be.  The  higher  my  thought  of 
what  God  has  given  me  grace  to  do,  the  more  shall  I  feel  weighed  down  by 
the  consciousness  of  my  unfitness  to  do  it. 

So,  for  all  hope,  for  all  success  in  our  work,  for  all  growth  in  Christian 
grace  and  character,  this  disposition  of  lowly  self-abasement  and  recognised 
unworthiness  and  infirmity  is  absolutely  indispensable.  The  mountain-tops 
that  lift  themselves  to  the  stars  are  barren,  and  few  springs  find  their  rise 
there.  It  is  in  the  lowly  valleys  that  the  flowers  grow  and  the  rivers  run. 
And  it  is  they  who  are  humble  and  lowly  in  heart  to  whom  God  gives 
strength  to  serve  Him,  and  the  joy  of  accepted  service.  Learn  your  true 
life's  task  by  identifying  yourself  with  the  humbler  brethren  whom  you 
would  help.  Learn  the  spirit  of  lowly  self-abasement.  And,  above  all, 
learn  this,  that  unless  you  have  the  life  of  God  in  your  heart,  you  have  no 
life  at  all.  If  you  have  that  faith  by  which  we  receive  into  our  spirits 
Christ's  own  spirit  to  be  our  life,  then  you  are  a  new  creature,  with  a  new 
name,  perhaps  dimly  visible,  and  faintly  audible,  amidst  the  imperfections  of 
earth,  but  sure  to  shine  in  the  Lamb's  Book  of  Life  ;  and  to  be  read,  "with 
tumults  of  acclaim,"  before  the  angels  of  Heaven.  "I  will  give  him  a 
white  stone,  and  in  the  stone  a  new  name  written,  which  no  man  knoweth 
save  he  that  receiveth  it." 

236 


PROGRESSIVE  BRIGHTNESS. 

The  path  of  the  righteous  is  as  the  shining  light  {the  light  of  dawn, 
marg.),  that  shineth  more  and  more  unto  the  perfect  day. — Prov.  iv.  i8. 

A  t  24  This  is  what  a  Christian  life  ought  to  be.  The  hght  of  the 
Christian  hfe,  hke  its  type  in  the  heavens,  may  be  analysed  into 
three  beams  :  purity,  knowledge,  blessedness  ;  and  these  three,  blended 
together,  make  the  pure  whiteness  of  a  Christian  soul.  Every  Christian 
life  should  be  a  life  of  increasing  lustre,  uninterrupted,  and  the  natural 
result  of  increasing  communion  with,  and  conformity  to,  the  very  fountain 
itself  of  heavenly  radiance.  Progress  is  laid  down  emphatically  in  Scripture 
as  the  mark  of  a  religious  life.  In  many  ways  Scripture  lays  it  down  as  a 
rule  that  life  in  the  highest  region,  like  life  in  the  lowest,  is  marked  by 
continual  growth.  It  is  so  in  regard  of  all  other  things.  Continuity  in  any 
kind  of  practice  gives  increasing  power  in  the  art.  The  artizan,  the  black- 
smith with  his  hammer,  the  skilled  artificer  at  his  trade,  the  student  at  his 
subject,  the  good  man  in  his  course  of  life,  and  the  bad  man  in  his,  do 
equally  show  that  use  becomes  second  narure.  And  so  let  me  say  what 
incalculable  importance  there  is  in  our  getting  habit,  with  all  its  mystical 
power  to  mould  hfe,  on  to  the  side  of  righteousness,  and  of  becoming 
accustomed  to  do  good,  and  so  being  unfamiliar  with  evil. 

This  intention  of  continuous  growth  is  marked  by  the  gifts  that  are 
bestowed  upon  us  in  Jesus  Christ.  He  gives  us — and  it  is  by  no  means  the 
least  of  the  gifts  that  He  bestows — an  absolutely  unattainable  aim  as  the 
object  of  our  efforts.  For  He  bids  us  not  only  be  perfect,  as  our  Father  in 
Heaven  is  perfect,  but  He  bids  us  be  entirely  conformed  to  His  own  Self. 
The  misery  of  men  is  that  they  pursue  aims  so  narrow  and  so  shabby  that 
they  can  be  attained,  and  are  therefore  left  behind,  to  sink  hull  down  on  the 
backward  horizon.  But  to  have  before  us  an  aim  which  is  absolutely  un- 
reachable, instead  of  being,  as  ignorant  people  say,  an  occasion  of  despair 
and  of  idleness,  is,  on  the  contrary,  the  very  salt  of  life.  It  keeps  us 
young,  it  makes  hope  immortal,  it  emancipates  from  lower  pursuits,  it 
diminishes  the  weight  of  sorrows,  it  administers  an  anaesthetic  to  every  pain. 
If  you  want  to  keep  life  fresh,  seek  for  that  which  you  can  never  fully 
find. 

Christ  gives  us  infinite  powers  to  reach  that  unattainable  aim,  for  He 
gives  us  access  to  all  His  own  fulness,  and  there  is  more  in  His  storehouses 
than  we  can  ever  take,  not  to  say  more  than  we  can  ever  hope  to  exhaust. 
And  therefore,  because  of  the  aim  that  is  set  before  us,  and  because  of  the 
pov/ers  that  are  bestowed  upon  us  to  reach  it,  there  is  stamped  upon  every 
Christian  hfe  unmistakably,  as  God's  purpose  and  ideal  concerning  it,  that 
it  should  for  ever  and  for  ever  be  growing  nearer  and  nearer,  as  some 
ascending  spiral  that  ever  circles  closer  and  closer,  and  yet  never  absolutely 
unites  with  the  great  central  Perfection  which  is  liimself.  So  for  every  one 
of  us,  if  we  are  Christian  people  at  all,  "  this  is  the  will  of  God,  even  your 
perfection." 


f 

INTERRUPTED   LIVES,   ARRESTED   DEVELOPMENT. 

When  by  reason  of  the  time  ye  ought  to  be  teachers,  ye  have  need  again 
that  some  one  teach  you  the  rudiments  of  the  first  principles  of  the  oracles  of 
God. — IIeb.  v.  12. 

.  .  gt  Consider  the  sad  contrast  of  too  many  Christian  lives.  There 
'  are  many  so-called  and,  in  a  fashion,  really  Christian  people,  to 
whom  Christ  and  His  work  are  mainly,  if  not  exclusively,  the  means  of 
escaping  the  consequences  of  sin — a  kind  of  "fire-escape."  And  to  very 
many  it  comes  as  a  new  thought,  in  so  far  as  their  practical  lives  are  con- 
cerned, that  these  ought  to  be  lives  of  steadily  increasing  deliverance  from 
the  love  and  the  power  of  sin,  and  steadily  increasing  appropriation  and 
manifestation  of  Christ's  granted  righteousness.  There  are,  I  think,  many 
of  us  from  whom  the  very  notion  of  progress  has  faded  away.  I  am  sure 
there  are  some  of  us  who  were  a  great  deal  further  on,  on  the  path  of  the 
Christian  life,  years  ago,  when  we  first  felt  that  Christ  was  anything  to  us, 
than  we  are  to-day. 

There  is  an  old  saying  of  one  of  the  prophets  that  a  child  would  die  a 
hundred  years  old,  which  in  a  very  sad  sense  is  true  about  very  many  folk 
within  the  pale  of  the  Christian  Church  who  are  seventy-year-old  babes 
still,  and  will  die  so.  Suns  "growing  brighter  and  brighter  until  the  noon- 
day ! "  Ah  !  there  are  many  of  us  who  are  a  great  deal  more  like  those 
strange,  variable  stars  that  sometimes  burst  out  in  the  heaven?  into  a  great 
blaze,  that  brings  them  up  to  the  brightness  of  stars  of  the  first  magnitude, 
for  a  day  or  two,  and  then  they  dwindle  until  they  become  little  specks  of 
light  that  the  telescope  can  hardly  see.  . 

And  there  are  hosts  of  us  who  are  instances,  if  not  of  arrested,  at  any 
rate  of  unsymmetrical,  development  The  head,  perhaps,  is  cultivated  ;  the 
intellectual  apprehension  of  Christianity  increases,  while  the  emotional 
and  the  moral  and  the  practical  part  of  it  are  all  neglected.  Or,  the 
converse  may  be  the  case  ;  and  we  may  be  full  of  gush  and  of  good  emotion, 
and  of  fervour  when  we  come  to  worship  or  to  pray,  and  our  lives  may  not 
be  a  hair  the  better  for  it  all.  Or,  there  may  be  a  disproportion  because  of 
an  exclusive  attention  to  conduct  and  the  practical  side  of  Christianity, 
while  the  rational  side  of  it,  which  should  be  the  basis  of  all,  and  the 
emotional  side  of  it,  which  should  be  the  driving  power  of  all,  are  com- 
paratively neglected. 

So,  what  with  interruptions,  what  with  growing  by  fits  and  starts,  and 
long,  dreary  winters  like  the  Arctic  winters,  coming  in  between  the  two  or 
three  days  of  rapid,  and  therefore  brief  and  unwholesome,  development,  we 
must  all,  I  think,  take  to  heart  the  condemnation,  when  we  compare  the 
reality  of  our  lives  with  the  Divine  intention  concerning  them.  Let  us  ask 
ourselves,  "Have  I  more  command  over  myself  than  I  had  twenty  years 
ago  ?  Do  I  live  nearer  Jesus  Christ  to-day  than  I  did  yesterday  ?  Have  I 
more  of  His  Spirit  in  me?  Am  I  growing?  Would  the  people  that  know 
me  best  say  that  I  am  growing  in  the  grace  and  knowledge  of  my  Lord  and 
Saviour  ?  "  Astronomers  tell  us  that  there  are  dark  suns,  that  have  burnt 
themselves  oi  t,  and  are  wandering  unseen  through  the  skies.  I  wonder  if 
there  are  any  extinguished  suns  among  my  readers. 

238 


FROM  DAWN  TO  NOON. 

They  that  be  wise  shall  shine  as  the  brightness  of  the  fimiament^  and 
they  that  turn  many  to  righteousness  as  the  stars  for  ever  and  ever. — 
Dan.  xii.  3. 

The  most  radiant  thing  on  earth  is  the  character  of  a  rood 
August  26. 

man.     The  world  calls  men  of  genius  and  intellectual  force  its 

lights.     The  Divine  estimate,  which  is  the  true  one,  confers  the  name  on 

righteousness.     This  Divine  purpose  concerning  us  may  be  realised  by  us, 

the   Alpha  and  the  Omega  of  which,   the  one  means  which  includes  all 

other,  is  laid  down  by  Jesus  Christ  Himself  when  He  said,  "Abide  in  Me, 

and  I  in  you,  so  shall  ye  bring  forth  much  fruit."     Our  path  will  brighten, 

not  because  of  any  radiance  in  ourselves,   but  in  proportion  as  we  draw 

nearer  and  nearer  to  the  fountain  of  heavenly  radiance.     The  planets  that 

move  round  the  sun,  further  away  than  we  are  on  the  earth,  get  less  of  its 

light  and  heat ;  and  those  that  circle  around  it  within  the  limits  of  our 

orbit,  get  proportionately   more.      The  nearer  we  are  to  Him,  the  more 

shall  we  shine.     The  sun  shines  by  its  own  light,  drawn  indeed  from  the 

shrinkage  of  its  mass,  so  that  it  gives  away  its  very  life  in  warming  and 

illuminating  its  subject-worlds.     But  we  shine  only  by  reflected  light,  and 

therefore  the  nearer  we  keep  to  Him  the  more  shall  we  be  radiant. 

That  keeping  in  touch  with  Jesus  Christ  is  mainly  to  be  secured  by  the 

direction  of  thought  and  love  and  trust  to  Him.     If  we  follow  close  upon 

Him,  we  shall  not  walk  in  darkness.     It  is  to  be  secured  and  maintained 

very  largely  by  what  I  am  afraid  is  much  neglected  by  Christian  people  of 

all  sorts  nowadays,  and  that  is  the  devotional  use  of  the:/  Bibles.     That  is 

the  food  by  which  we  grow.     It  is  to  be  secured  and  maintained  still  more 

largely  by  that  which  I,  again,  am  afraid  is  but  very  imperfectly  attained 

to  by  Christian  people  now,  and  that  is,  the  habit  of  prayer.     It  is  to  be 

secured  and  maintained,  again,  by  the  honest  conforming  of  our  lives,  day 

by  day,  to  the  present  amount  of  our  knowledge  of  Him  and  of  His  will. 

Whosoever  will  make  all  his  life  the  manifestation  of  his  belief,  and  turn  all 

his  creed  into  principles  of  action,  will  grow  both  in  the  comprehensiveness 

and  in  the  depths  of  his  Christian  character.      "Ye  are  light  in  the  Lord." 

Keep  in  Him,  and  you  will  become  brighter  and  brighter.     So  shall  we 

"go  from  strength  to  strength,  till  we  appear  before  God  in  Zion." 

239 


THE  EARTHLY  SETTING,  THE  BRIGHTER  RISING. 

Then  shall  the  righteous  shine  forth  as  the  sim  in  the  kingdom  of  their 
Father. — Matt.  xiii.  43. 

.  --    Beauty,    intellect,    power,   goodness,  all  go    down  into   the 

"^^  *  dark.  The  sun  sets,  and  there  is  left  a  sad  and  fadin'.^  glow  in 
the  darkening  pensive  sky,  which  may  recall  the  vanished  light  for  a  little 
while  to  a  few  faitliful  hearts,  but  steadily  passes  into  the  ashen  grey  of 
forgetfulness.  The  momentary  setting  is  but  apparent ;  and,  ere  it  is  well 
accomplished,  a  new  sun  swims  into  the  "  ampler  ether,  the  diviner  air  "  of 
that  future  life,  *'  and,  with  new  spangled  beams,  flames  in  the  forehead  of 
the  morning  sky." 

The  reason  for  the  inherent  brightness  is  that  the  soul  of  the  righteous 
man  passes  from  earth  into  a  region  out  of  which  we  "  gather  all  things  that 
offend,  and  them  that  do  iniquity."  There  are  other  reasons  for  it,  but 
that  is  the  one  which  our  Lord  dwells  on.  Or,  to  put  it  into  modern 
scientific  language,  environment  corresponds  to  character.  So,  when  the 
clouds  have  rolled  away,  and  no  more  mists  from  the  undrained  swamps  of 
selfishness  and  sin  and  animal  nature  rise  up  to  hide  the  radiance,  there 
shall  be  a  fuller  flood  of  light  poured  from  the  re-created  sun. 

That  brightness  thus  promised  has  for  its  highest  and  most  blessed 
character  that  it  is  conformity  to  the  Lord  Himself.  Eor,  as  you  may 
remember,  the  last  use  of  this  emblem  that  we  find  in  Scripture  refers  not 
to  the  servant,  but  to  the  Master,  whom  His  beloved  disciple  in  Apocalyptic 
vision  saw,  with  His  "countenance  as  the  sun  shining  in  his  strength." 
Thus,  "we  shall  be  like  Him,  for  we  shall  see  Him  as  He  is."  And, 
therefore,  that  radiance  of  the  sainted  dead  is  progressive,  too.  For  it  has 
an  infinite  fulness  to  draw  upon  ;  and  the  soul  that  is  joined  to  Jesus 
Christ,  and  derives  its  lustre  from  Him,  cannot  die  until  it  has  outgrown 
Jesus  and  emptied  God.  The  sun  will  one  day  be  a  dark,  cold  ball.  We 
shall  outlast  it. 

But  remember  that  it  is  only  those  who  here  on  earth  have  progressively 
appropriated  the  brightness  that  Christ  bestows  who  have  a  right  to  reckon 
on  that  better  rising.  It  is  contrary  to  all  probability  to  believe  that  the 
passage  from  life  can  change  the  ingrained  direction  and  set  of  a  man's 
nature.  We  know  nothing  that  warrants  us  in  affirming  that  death  can 
revolutionise  character.  Do  not  trust  your  future  to  such  a  dim  per- 
adventure.  Here  is  a  plain  truth.  They  who  on  earth  are  as  the  shining 
light  that  shineth  more  and  more  until  the  "  perfect  day,"  shall,  beyond 
the  shadow  of  eclipse,  shine  on  as  the  sun  does,  behind  the  opaque,  inter- 
vening body,  all  unconscious  of  what  looks  to  mortal  eyes  on  earth  an 
eclipse,  and  "  shall  blaze  out  like  the  sun  in  their  Heavenly  Father's 
Kingdom."  For  all  that  we  know,  and  are  taught  by  experience,  religious 
and  moral  distinctions  are  eternal.  "  He  that  is  righteous,  let  him  be 
righteous  still ;  and  he  that  is  filthy,  let  him  be  filthy  still." 

240 


THE   FRIEND   OF  GOD. 

He  was  called  the  friend  of  God. — ^James  ii.  23. 

When  and  by  whom  was  he  so  called?  There  are  two 
"^"^  ■  passages  in  the  Old  Testament  in  which  an  analogous  designa- 
tion is  applied  to  the  patriarch,  but  probably  the  name  was  one  in  current 
use  amongst  the  people,  and  expressed  in  a  summary  fashion  the  impression 
tliat  had  been  made  by  the  history  of  Abraham's  life.  A  sweet  fate  to  have 
that  as  the  brief  record  of  a  character,  and  to  be  known  throughout  the 
ages  by  such  an  epitaph  !  As  many  of  us  are  aware,  this  name,  *'the 
Friend,"  has  displaced  the  proper  name,  Abraham,  on  the  lips  of  all 
Mohammedan  people  to  this  day;  and  the  city  of  Hebron,  where  his  corpse 
lies,  is  commonly  known  simply  as  "the  Friend."  How  beautiful  and 
blessed  a  thought  it  is  which  underlies  this  and  similar  representations  of 
Scripture — viz.,  that  the  bond  which  unites  us  to  God  is  the  very  same 
as  that  which  most  sweetly  and  strongly  ties  men  to  one  another  ;  and  that, 
after  all,  religion  is  nothing  more  nor  else  than  the  transference  to  Him 
of  the  emotions  which  make  all  the  sweetness  of  human  life  and  society. 

But  whilst  this  behef  in  God  was  the  ver}'-  nerve  and  centre  of  Abraham's 
whole  character,  and  was  the  reason  v/hy  he  was  called  the  friend  of  God, 
we  must  also  remember  that,  as  James  insists  upon  it  here,  it  was  no  mere 
idle  assent,  no  mere  intellectual  conviction  that  God  could  not  tell  lies,  which 
was  dignified  by  the  name  of  belief,  but  that  it  was,  as  James  insists  upon  in 
the  context,  a  trust  which  proved  itself  to  be  valid,  because  it  was  continually 
operative  in  the  life.  "  Faith  without  w^orks  is  dead."  **And  Abraham, 
our  father,  was  he  not  justified  by  works  ?" 

And  so  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  if  you  will  remember,  traces  up  to 
his  faith  all  the  chief  points  in  his  life.  "  By  faith  he  went  out  from  the 
land  where  he  dwelt ;  by  faith  he  dwelt  in  tabernacles,"  in  the  promised 
land,  beheving  that  it  should  be  his  and  his  seeds.  '*  By  faith"  he  offered 
up  his  son  on  the  altar. 

And  then,  in  the  future  life,  with  new  modes  of  manifestation  and  new 
capacities  of  apprehension,  we  shall  draw  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  sun  that 
we  beheld  here  shining  through  the  mists  and  the  clouds  ;  and  it  will  be  to 
us  as  it  would  be  to  an  inhabitant  of  the  furthest  planet  that  wheels  his 
course  away  out  in  what  seems  to  us  darkness  and  cold,  if  he  were  brought 
and  set  down  in  that  one  which  cii  cles  round  the  sun  in  the  narrowest  orbit, 
and  receives  most  of  his  fervid  beams  and  dazzling  light.  If  we,  amidst 
the  shows  and  gauds  of  time  and  the  crowds  of  thronging  men  and  the  dis- 
tractions of  our  daily  occupations,  steadfastly  seek  and  see  the  Lord,  and 
have  beams  coming  from  Him,  as  a  light  shining  in  a  dark  place.  He  will 
lift  us  yonder,  and  turn  the  whole  benediction  of  the  sunlight  of  His  face 
upon  us,  and,  saturated  with  the  brightness,  we  shall  walk  in  the  light  of 
His  countenance  and  be  amongst  the  people  of  the  blessed. 

24:  R 


GOD'S   FA.MILIARITY  WITH   HIS   FRIENDS. 

And  the  Lord  said,  Shall  I  hide  frotn  Abraham  that  which  I  do?^ 
Gen.  xviii.  17. 

A  t  29  **  ^  CALL  you  not  servants,  but  friends ;  for  all  things  that 
^  '  'I  have  heard  of  My  Father  I  declare  unto  you."  So  much  for 
God's  frankness.  What  about  Abraham's  frankness  with  God  ?  Remember 
how  he  remonstrated  with  Him  ;  how  he  complained  to  Kim  of  His  dealings ; 
how  he  persisted  with  importunity,  which  would  have  been  presumptuous 
but  for  the  friendship  which  underlay  it,  and  which  is  expressed  in  words. 
And  let  us  take  the  simple  lesson  that  if  we  are  friends  and  lovers  of  God, 
we  shall  delight  in  His  company.  Ah  !  it  is  a  strange  kind  of  religion 
that  does  not  care  to  be  with  God,  that  would  rather  think  about  anything 
else  than  about  Him,  that  is  all  unused  to  quiet,  solitary  conversation  and 
communion  with  Him,  but  it  is  the  religion  of  I  wonder  how  many  of  us  ? 
He  would  be  a  strange  friend  that  never  crossed  your  threshold  if  he  could 
help  it  ;  that  was  evidently  uncomfortable  in  your  presence,  and  ill  at  ease 
till  he  got  away  from  you  ;  and  that  when  he  came  was  struck  dumb,  and 
had  not  a  word  to  say  for  himself,  and  did  not  know  or  feel  that  he  and  you 
had  any  interests  or  subjects  in  common.  Is  that  not  a  good  deal  like 
the  religion  of  hosts  of  professing  Christians  ? 

If  we  are  friends  of  God  we  shall  have  no  secrets  from  Him.  There 
are  very  few  of  those  that  are  dearest  to  us  to  whom  we  could  venture  to  lay 
bare  all  the  depths  of  our  hearts.  There  are  black  things  down  in  the 
cellars  that  we  do  not  like  to  take  our  friends  down  into.  We  keep  them 
upstairs,  in  the  rooms  for  company.  But  you  can  take  God  all  through 
the  house.  And  if  there  is  the  trust  and  the  love  that  I  have  been  speaking 
about,  we  shall  not  be  afraid  to  spread  all  our  foulness  and  our  meanness 
and  our  unworthy  thoughts  of,  and  acts  towards.  Him  before  His  "pure 
eyes  and  perfect  judgment." 

Tell  God  all,  if  you  mean  to  be  a  friend  of  His.  And  do  not  be  afraid 
to  tell  Him  your  harsh  thoughts  of  Him,  and  your  complaints  of  Him.  He 
never  resents  anything  that  a  man  that  loves  Him  says  about  Him,  if  he 
says  it  to  Him.  What  He  resents — if  I  might  use  the  word — is  our  huddling 
up  grudges  and  murmurings  and  questionings  in  our  own  hearts,  and  saying 
never  a  word  to  the  Friend  against  whom  they  offend.  Out  with  it  all. 
Complaints,  regrets,  questionings,  petitions,  hot  wishes— take  them  all  to 
Him  ;  and  be  sure  that,  instead  of  breaking,  they  will,  if  spoken,  cement 
the  friendship,  which  is  disturbed  by  secrecy  on  our  parts. 

If  we  are  God's  lovers  He  will  have  no  secrets  from  us.  "The  secret 
of  the  Lord  is  v/ith  them  that  fear  Him  ;  and  He  will  show  them  Flis 
Covenant."  There  is  a  strange  wisdom  and  insight,  sometimes  amounting 
even  to  prophetic  anticipation,  which  creeps  into  a  simple  heart  that  is  knit 
closely  to  God.  But  whether  the  result  of  our  friendship  with  Him  be  such 
communication  of  such  kinds  of  insight  or  no,  we  may  be  sure  of  this,  that 
if  we  trust  Him,  and  love  Him,  and  arc  frank  with  Him,  He  will  in  so  far 
be  frank  with  us,  that  He  will  impart  unto  us  Himself,  and  in  the  know- 
ledge of  His  love  we  shall  find  all  the  knowledge  that  we  need. 

242 


A  MUTUAL  FRIENDSHIP. 

And  the  Lord  spake  unto  Moses  face  to  face,  as  a  man  speaketh  unto  his 
friend. — ExOD.  xxxiii.  II. 

.  --    Abraham,  the  humble  earthly  friend  of  God,  did  as  God  bade 

him,  substantially,  all  his  life,  from  the  day  when  he  made  the 

"Great  Refusal,"  and  left  behind  him  home  and  kindred  and  all,  until 

the   day  when  he  went  up  the  sides  of  Moriah  to  offer  there  his  son. 

Abraham  met  God's  wishes  because  Abraham  trusted  and  loved  God. 

And  what  about  the  Divine  Friend  ?  Did  He  not  meet  Abraham's 
wishes?  You  remember  that  wonderful  scene,  which  presents,  in  such 
vivid  and  dramatic  form,  the  everlasting  truth  that  the  man  who  bows  his 
will  to  God  bows  God's  will  to  his,  when  he  pleaded  for  Sodom,  and  won 
his  case  by  persistence  and  importunity  of  lowly  prayer.  And  these 
historical  notices  on  both  sides  are  for  us  the  vehicles  of  the  permanent 
truth,  that,  if  we  are  God's  lovers  and  friends,  we  shall  find  nothing  sweeter 
than  bowing  to  His  will  and  executing  His  commandments.  The  very 
mark  and  signature  of  love  is  that  it  delights  to  divine  and  fulfil  the 
desires  of  the  beloved,  and  that  it  moulds  the  will  of  each  of  the  parties 
into  conformity  with  the  will  of  the  other. 

Ah  !  what  a  commentary  our  religion  is  upon  such  thoughts  !  To 
how  many  of  us  is  the  very  notion  of  religion  that  of  a  prohibition  of 
things  that  we  would  much  like  to  do,  and  of  commands  to  do  things  that 
we  would  much  rather  not  do  ?  All  the  slavery  of  abject  submission,  of 
reluctant  service,  is  clean  swept  away  when  we  understand  that  friendship 
and  love  find  their  supreme  delight  in  discovering  and  in  executing  the  will 
of  the  beloved.  And  surely  if  you  and  I  are  the  friends  of  God,  the  cold 
words,  "  duty,"  "  must,"  "  should,"  will  be  struck  out  of  our  vocabulary, 
and  will  be  replaced  by  "delight,"  "cannot  but,"  "will"  !  For  friends 
find  the  very  life — I  was  going  to  say  the  voice — of  their  friendship  in 
mutual  obedience. 

And  God,  the  heavenly  Friend,  will  do  what  we  wish.  In  that  very 
connection  did  Jesus  Christ  put  the  two  thoughts  of  friendship  with  Him 
and  His  executing  His  disciples'  behests  ;  in  one  breath  saying,  "Ye  are 
My  friends  if  ye  do  whatsoever  I  command  you,"  and  in  the  next,  "Ye 
shall  ask  what  ye  will,  and  it  shall  be  done  unto  you."  This  conformity 
of  will,  so  that  there  is  but  one  will  in  the  two  hearts,  which  is  the  very 
consummation  and  superlative  degree  of  human  friendship  and  love,  applies 
as  truly  to  the  friendship  between  man  and  God. 

243 


GOD'S   METHOD   OF   GIVING. 

hie  that  spared  not  His  own  Son,  but  delivered  Httn  for  us  all,  how 
shall  He  not  also  with  Him  freely  give  us  all  things  ? — ROM.  viii.  32. 

,  „-    Abraham's  gift  of  his  son  to  God  was  but  a  feeble  shadow 

^^^  '  of  God's  gift  of  His  Son  to  men.  And  if  the  surrender  on  the 
part  of  the  human  friend  was  the  infallible  token  of  his  love,  surely  the 
surrender  on  the  part  of  the  heavenly  Friend  is  no  less  the  infallible  sign 
of  His  love  to  all  the  world.  If  we  are  God's  friends  and  lovers  we  shall 
give  Him,  in  glad  surrender,  our  whole  selves.  And  if  you  feel  that  you 
have  separate  interests  from  Him  ;  if  you  keep  things  and  do  not  let  Him 
say,  "These  are  Mine  "  ;  if  you  grudge  sacrifice,  and  will  not  hear  of  self- 
surrender,  and  are  living  lives  centred  in,  ruled  by,  devoted  to,  self,  you 
have  little  reason  to  call  yourself  a  Christian.  "  Ye  are  My  friends  if  ye," 
not  only  "do  whatsoever  I  command  you,"  but  "if  you  give  yourself 
to  Me."  Yield  yourself  to  God,  and  in  the  giving  of  yourself  to  Him 
you  will  get  back  yourself  glorified  and  blessed  by  the  gift.  There  is  no 
friendship  where  self  shuts  out  the  friend  from  participation  in  what  is  the 
other's.  As  long  as  "mine"  lives  on  this  side  of  a  high  wall,  and 
*'  thine  "  on  the  other,  there  is  but  little  friendship.  Down  with  the  wall, 
and  say  about  everything,  "Ours";  and  then  you  have  a  right  to  say, 
"  I  am  the  friend  of  God." 

"  I  am  thy  shield ;  fear  not,  Abraham,"  said  God,  when  His  friend  was  in 
danger  from  the  vengeance  of  the  Eastern  kings  whom  he  had  defeated.  And 
all  through  life  the  same  strong  arm  was  cast  around  him.  And  Abraham 
had  to  stand  up  for  God  amidst  this  heathen  people.  If  we  are  God's 
friends  and  lovers  He  will  take  up  our  cause.  Be  sure  that  if  God  be  for 
us  it  matters  not  who  is  against  us.  Vv^hat  would  you  think  of  a  man  who, 
in  going  away  to  a  far-off  country,  said  to  some  friend,  "  I  wish  you  would 
look  after  so-and-so  for  me  as  long  as  I  am  gone  "  ;  and  the  friend  would 
say,  "  Yes  !"  and  never  give  a  thought  nor  lift  a  finger  to  discharge  the 
obligation  ?  God  trusts  His  reputation  to  you.  He  has  interests  in  this 
world  that  you  have  to  look  after.  You  have  to  defend  Him  as  really 
as  He  has  to  defend  you.  And  it  is  the  dreadful  contradiction  of  religious 
people's  profession  of  religion  that  they  often  care  so  little,  and  do  so  little, 
to  promote  the  cause,  to  defend  the  name,  to  adorn  the  reputation,  and 
to  further  what  I  may  venture  to  call  the  interests  of  their  heavenly  Friend 
in  the  world. 

Can  you  venture  to  say  that  you  are  a  friend  of  God  ?  It  you  cannot, 
what  are  you  ?  Our  relations  to  men  admit  of  our  dividing  them  into  three 
—  friends,  enemies,  nothings.  We  may  love,  we  may  hate,  we  may  be 
absolutely  indifferent  and  ignorant.  I  am  afraid  the  three  states  cannot 
be  transferred  exactly  to  our  relations  to  God.  If  not  His  friend,  what 
are  you  ?  Have  you  only  a  far-off  bowing  acquaintance  with  Him  ?  Well, 
then,  that  is  because  you  have  neglected,  if  you  have  not  spurned,  His 
offered  friendship.  And  oh  !  how  much  you  have  lost  !  No  human 
heart  is  a  millionth  part  so  sweet,  and  so  capable  of  satisfying  you,  as 
God's.  All  friendship  here  has  its  limits,  its  changes,  its  end  ;  God's  is 
b(jundless,  immutable,  eternal. 

244 


GOD   MANIFEST   IN   THE   FLESH. 

^F/.'o  i's  the  image  of  the  invisible  God,  the  firstborn  of  every  creature. 
^COL.  i.  15. 

_         ,      .       Why  does  our  Lord  on  one  occasion   (John  xiv.  9)  charge 
^  *      Philip  with  not  knowing  Him  ?     Because  PhiHp  had  said, 

**  Lord  !  show  us  the  Father  and  it  suf'ticeth  us."  And  why  was  that 
question  a  betrayal  of  Philip's  ignorance  of  Christ  ?  Because  it  showed 
that  he  had  not  discerned  Him  as  being  "  the  Only  Begotten  of  the  Father, 
full  of  grace  and  truth,"  and  had  not  understood  that  "  He  that  hath  seen 
Me  hath  seen  the  Father.  You  do  not  know,  and  not  knowing  that,  all 
your  knowledge  of  Me,  howsoever  tender  and  sweet  it  may  have  been, 
howsoever  full  of  love  and  reverence  and  blind  admiration — all  your  know- 
ledge of  Me  is  but  twilight  knowledge,  which  may  well  be  called  ignorance." 
Not  to  know  Christ  as  the  manifest  God  is  practically  to  be  ignorant  of 
Him  altogether.  Philip  asked  for  some  visible  manifestation,  such  as 
their  old  books  told  them  had  been  granted  to  Moses  on  the  mountain,  to 
Isaiah  in  the  temple,  and  to  many  another  one  besides. 

But  if  such  a  revelation  had  been  given — and  Christ  could  have  given 
it  if  He  would — what  a  poor  thing  it  would  have  been,  put  side  by  side 
with  that  mild  and  lambent  light  that  was  ever  streaming  from  Him, 
making  God  visible  to  every  sensitive  and  responsive  nature  !  For  these 
external  manifestations  for  which  Philip  is  here  hungering,  what  could  they 
show  ?  They  could  show  certain  majestic,  splendid,  pompous,  outside 
characteristics  of  God,  but  they  could  never  show  Gcd,  much  less  could 
they  show  "  the  Father."  Righteousness  and  love,  the  revelation  of  these 
two,  could  be  entrusted  to  no  flashing  brightnesses,  and  to  no  thunders  and 
lightnings.  There  can  be  no  revelation  of  these  things  to  the  outward  eye, 
but  only  to  the  inward  heart  through  the  medium  of  a  human  life.  For 
not  the  power  which  knows  no  weariness,  not  the  eye  which  never  closes, 
not  the  omniscience  which  holds  all  things,  great  and  small,  in  its  grasp, 
make  God.  These  are  but  the  fringe,  the  outermost  parts,  of  the  circum- 
ference ;  the  living  Centre  is  a  Righteous  Love.  And  you  cannot  reveal 
that  by  any  means  but  by  showing  it  in  action  ;  nor  show  it  in  action  by 
any  means  so  sure  as  in  a  human  life.  Therefore,  above  all  other  forms 
of  manifestation  of  God,  stands  the  Person  of  Jesus  Christ — God  manifest 
in  the  flesh. 

Jesus  is  Lord.  My  brother,  a  Man,  is  King  of  the  universe.  The  new 
thing  in  Christ's  return  to  "  the  glory  which  He  had  with  the  Father  before 
the  world  was"  is  that  He  took  the  Manhood  with  Him  in  indissoluble 
union  with  the  Divinity,  and  that  a  Man  is  Lord.  So  you  and  I  can 
cherish  that  wonderful  hope.  "  I  will  give  to  him  that  overcometh  to  sit 
wiih  Me  on  My  throne."  Nor  need  we  ever  fear  but  that  all  things  con- 
cerning ourselves  and  our  dear  ones,  and  the  Church  and  the  vi'oild,  will  be 
ordered  aright,  for  the  hand  that  sways  the  universe  is  the  hand  that  was 
many  a  time  laid  in  blessing  upon  the  sick  and  the  maimed,  and  that 
gathered  little  children  to  His  bosom. 

245 


CHRIST'S   OWN  CLAIM. 

No  one  knoweth  the  Son,  save  the  Father ;  neither  doth  any  know  the 
Father,  save  the  Son,  and  he  to  whomsoever  the  Son  willeth  to  reveal  Htm. 
— Matt.  xi.  27. 

It  seems  to  me  that  if  there  is  anything  certain  at  all,  it  is 
certain  that  Jesus  Christ,  whilst  upon  earth,  claimed 
habitually  to  be  the  visible  manifestation  of  God,  in  a  degree,  in  a  manner 
•wholly  unlike  that  in  which  a  pure,  good,  wise,  righteous  man  may  claim 
to  shine  with  some  reflected  beams  of  Divine  brightness.  And  we  have  to 
reckon  and  make  our  account  with  that,  and  shape  our  theology  accordiiigly. 
I  come  to  some  of  you  who  admire  and  reverence  this  great  Teacher, 
this  pure  Humanity,  who  know  much  of  Him,  who  seek  to  follow  in  His 
footsteps  in  some  measure,  but  who  stand  outside  that  innermost  circle 
wherein  He  manifests  Himself  as  the  God  Incarnate,  the  Sacrifice,  and  the 
Saviour  of  the  sins  of  the  world  ;  and  whilst  I  thankfully  admit  that  a 
man's  relation  to  Christ  may  be  a  great  deal  deeper  and  more  vital  and 
blessed  than  his  articulate  creed,  I  am  bound  to  say  that  not  to  know  Him 
in  this  His  very  deepest  and  most  essential  character  is  little  different  from 
being  ignorant  of  Him  altogether. 

Here  is  a  great  thinker  or  teacher,  perhaps,  whose  fame  has  filled  the 
world,  whose  books  are  upon  every  student's  shelf;  he  lives  in  a  little 
remote  country  hamlet  :  the  cottagers  beside  him  know  him  as  a  kind 
neighbour  and  a  sympathetic  friend.  They  never  heard  of  his  books,  they 
never  heard  of  his  thoughts,  they  do  not  know  anything  of  what  he  has 
done  all  over  the  world.  Do  you  call  that  knowing  him  i  You  do  not 
know  a  man  if  you  only  know  the  surface  and  not  the  secrets  of  his  being. 
You  do  not  know  a  man  if  you  only  know  the  subordinate  characteristics  of 
his  nature,  but  not  the  essential  ones.  The  very  heart  of  Christ  is  this  : 
the  Incarnate  God,  the  sacrifice  for  ihe  sins  of  the  whole  world. 

You  may  be  disciples,  in  the  imperfect  sense  in  which  the  apostles  were 
disciples  before  the  Cross  and  the  Resurrection  and  the  Ascension,  im- 
perfect disciples  like  them,  but  without  their  excuse  for  it.  Rut  oh  !  you 
will  never  know  Him  until  ynu  know  Him  as  the  Eiernal  Word,  and  until 
you  can  say,  "  We  beheld  Ilis  glory,  the  glory  as  of  the  Oiily  r-ev;otten  of 
the  Father,  full  of  grace  and  truth."  Not  seeing  that,  you  see  but  as  a  dim 
speck,  or  a  star  a  little  brighter  than  its  brethren  that  hang  in  the  heavens 
of  history,  Him  who  really  is  the  Central  Sun,  from  whom  all  light  comes, 
to  whom  the  whole  creation  moves.  If  you  know  Him  for  the  Incarnate 
Word  and  Lamb  who  bears  the  world's  sin,  you  know  Him  for  what  He  is. 
All  the  rest  is  most  precious,  most  fair  ;  but  without  that  cer.tral  truth,  you 
have  but  a  fragmentary  Christ,  and  nothing  less  than  the  whole  Chribt  is 
enough  for  you. 

246 


THE  PATIENT  TEACHER  AND  THE  SLOW  SCHOLARS. 

Jesus  saith  unto  htm,  Have  I  been  so  long  time  with  you,  and  dost  thou 
not  know  Me,  Philip  ?  He  that  hath  seen  Me  hath  seen  the  Father. — 
John  xiv.  9. 

_  ,  ,  g  In  these  v/ords  we  have  a  glimpse  into  the  pained  and 
^'  ™  '  loving  heart  of  our  Lord.  We  very  seldom  hear  Him 
speak  about  His  own  feelings  or  experience  ;  and  when  He  does,  it  is 
always  in  some  such  incidental  way  as  this.  So  that  these  glimpses,  like 
liitle  windows  opening  out  upon  some  great  prospect,  are  the  more 
precious  to  us. 

I  think  we  shall  not  misunderstand  the  tone  of  this  question  to  Philip 
if  we  see  in  it  wonder,  pained  love,  and  tender,  chiding  remonstrance. 
"  Have  I  been  so  long  with  you,  and  yet  hast  thou  not  known  Me?"  In 
another  place  we  read  :  "  He  marvelled  at  their  unbelief."  And  here 
there  is  almost  a  surprise  that  He  should  have  been  shining  so  long  and  so 
near,  and  yet  the  purblind  eyes  should  have  seen  so  little. 

But  there  is  more  than  that,  there  is  a  complaint  and  pain  in  the 
question — the  pain  of  vainly  endeavouring  to  teach,  vainly  endeavouring  to 
help,  vainly  endeavouring  to  love.  And  there  are  few  pains  like  that. 
All  men  that  have  tried  to  help  and  bless  their  fellows  have  known  what  it 
is  to  have  their  compassion  and  their  efforts  thrown  back  upon  themselves. 
And  there  are  few  sorrows  heavier  to  carry  than  this  :  the  burden  of  a 
heart  that  would  fain  pour  its  love  into  another  heart  if  that  heart  would 
only  let  it,  but  is  repelled  and  obliged  to  bear  its  treasures  unimparted. 
The  slowness  of  the  pupil  is  the  sorrow  of  the  honest  teacher  ;  the  in- 
gratitude and  non-receptiveness  of  some  churlish  nature  that  you  tried  to 
lavish  good  upon,  have  they  not  often  brought  a  bitterness  to  your  hearts? 
If  ever  you  have  had  the  bitter  experience  of  a  child  or  a  friend  or  a  dear 
one  that  you  have  tried  to  get  by  all  means  to  love  you,  and  to  take  your 
love,  and  who  has  thrown  it  all  back  in  your  face,  you  may  know  in  some 
faint  measure  what  was  at  least  one  of  the  elements  which  made  Him  the 
"Man  of  Sorrows  and  acquainted  with  grief."  But  there  is  not  only  the 
pain  caused  by  slow  apprehension  and  unrequited  love,  but  also  the  depth 
and  patience  of  a  clinging  love  that  is  not  turned  away  by  the  pain.  How 
tenderly  the  name  "  Philip"  comes  in  at  the  end  !  It  recalls  that  other 
instance  when  a  whole  world  of  feeling  and  appeal  was  compressed  into  the 
one  word  to  the  weeping  woman,  "Mary,"  and  when  another  Avorld  of 
Ui.  utterable  rapture  and  surprise  was  in  her  one  answering  word,  "  Rabboni." 
W^e  may  think  of  that  patient  love  of  Plis  that  will  not  be  soured  by  any 
slowness  or  scantiness  of  response.  Dammed  back  by  our  sullen  rejection, 
it  still  flows  on,  seeking  to  conquer  by  long-suffering.  Refused,  it  still 
lingers  round  the  closed  door  of  the  heart,  and  knocks  for  entrance.  Mis- 
understood, it  still  meekly  manifests  itself.  The  same  feelings  of  pain  and 
patient  love  are  in  the  heart  of  the  throned  Christ  to-day.  Mystery  and 
paradox  as  it  may  be,  I  suppose  that  there  passes  over  even  His  victorious 
and  serene  repose  in  the  heavens  some  shadow  of  pain  and  sorrow  still, 
when  you  and  I  turn  away  from  Him.  We  cannot  understand  it ;  but  if  it 
be  true  that  He  has  still  a  "  fellow-feeling  of  our  pains,"  it  is  not  less  true 
that  His  love  is  still  wounded  by  our  lovelessness,  and  His  manifestation 
of  Himself  made  sad  by  the  slowness  of  our  reception  of  Him. 

247 


OUR  NARROW  VISION  OF  CHRIST. 
Having  eyes,  see  ye  not?  And  having  ears,  hear  ve  not? — Mark  viii.  1 8. 

-  .      In  Christ  there  are  infinite  depths  to  be  experienced  and  to 

^  '     become  acquainled  with  ;  and  if  we  know  Him  at  all  as  we 

ought  to  do,  our  knowledge  of  Him  will  be  growing  day  by  day.     But  how 

many  of  us  stand  at  the  same  spot  that  we  did  when  we  first  said  that  we 

were  Christin.ns? 

We  are  like  the  Indians  that  live  in  rich  gold  countries,  that  could  only 
gather  the  ore  that  happened  to  lie  upon  the  surfiice  or  could  be  washed  out 
of  the  sands  of  the  river  ;  but  in  this  great  Christ  there  are  depths  of  gold, 
great  reefs  and  veins  of  it,  that  will  enrich  us  all  if  we  dig — and  we  shall  not 
get  it  unless  we  do. 

He  is  the  boundless  ocean.  We  have  contented  ourselves  with  coasting 
along  the  shore  and  making  timid  excursions  from  one  headland  to  another ; 
let  us  strike  out  into  the  middle  deep  and  see  all  the  wonders  that  are  there. 
This  great  Christ  is  like  the  infinite  sky  with  its  unresolved  nebulte.  We  have 
but  looked  with  our  poor  dim  eyes  ;  let  us  take  the  telescope  that  will  reveal 
to  us  suns  blazing  where  now  we  only  see  darkness. 

If  we  have  any  true  knowledge  of  Jesus  Christ  at  all,  it  ought  to  be 
growing  every  day.  And  why  does  it  not  ?  Why  does  it  not  ?  You  know 
a  man  because  you  are  much  with  him.  As  the  old  proverb  says,  "  If  you 
want  to  know  anybody,  you  must  summer  and  winter  with  them  "  ;  and  if 
you  want  to  know  Jesus  Christ,  there  must  be  a  great  deal  more  meditative 
thoughtfulness  and  honest  study  of  His  life  and  work  than  any  of  us  have 
ever  put  forth.  We  know  people,  too,  by  sympathy  and  by  love  and  by 
keeping  near  them.  Keep  near  your  Master,  Christian  men  !  Oh,  it  is  a 
wonder  and  a  shame  and  a  sin  for  us  professing  Christians  that,  having 
tasted  the  sweetness  of  His  love,  we  should  come  down  so  low  as  to  long 
for  the  garbage  of  earth.  Who  is  fool  enough  to  prefer  vinegar  to  wine, 
bitter  herbs  to  grapes,  dross  to  gold?  Who  is  there  that,  having  consorted 
with  the  King,  would  gladly  herd  with  ragged  rebels  ?  And  yet  that  is  what 
we  do.  We  love  one  another,  the  world,  people  round  about  us.  We  labour 
in  the  effort  to  make  acquaintances,  to  surround  ourselves  with  friends,  and 
to  fill  our  hearts  from  these  many  fountains.  All  right  and  well  !  But  let 
us  seek  to  know  Cnrist  more,  and  to  know  Him  most  chiefly  in  this,  that 
He  is  for  us  the  manifest  God  and  the  Saviour  of  the  world. 

Some  of  us  may  have  seen  a  weiglity  acknowledgment  from  a  distin- 
guished biologist,  lately  deceased,  vvhich  strikes  me  as  relevant  to  this 
thought.  Listen  to  his  confession  :  "  I  know  from  experience  the  intel- 
lectual distractions  ot  scientific  research,  philosophical  speculation,  and 
artistic  pleasures,  but  am  also  well  aware  that  even  when  all  are  taken 
together,  and  well  sweetened  to  taste,  in  respect  of  consequent  reputation, 
means,  social  position,  etc.,  the  whole  concoction  is  but  as  high  confec- 
tionery to  a  starving  man.  ...  It  has  l)een  my  lot  to  know  not  a  few  of 
the  foremost  men  of  our  generation,  and  I  have  always  observed  that  this 
is  profoundly  true."  That  is  the  testimony  of  a  man  that  had  tried  the 
highest,  least  material  forms  of  such  a  trust.  And  I  know  that  there  is  an 
"amen  !  "  to  it  in  every  heart,  and  I  lift  up  opposite  to  all  such  experiences 
the  grand  summary  of  Christian  experience  :  "  We  which  have  believed  do 
enter  into  rest." 

248 


DO  YOU  KNOW  JESUS? 

This  is  life  eternal,  that  they  should  know  Thee,  the  only  true  God,  and 
Him  whom  Thou  didst  send,  even  Jesus  Christ. — John  xvii.  3. 

,  It  is  the  great  wonder  of  human  history  that  after  ein;hteen 

^  ^  ^  '  hundred  years  the  world  knows  so  little  of  Jesus  Christ. 
The  leaders  of  opinion,  the  leaders  of  the  literature  of  England,  the  men 
that  profess  to  guide  the  thoughts  of  this  generation,  how  little  they  know, 
really,  about  this  Master  !  What  profound  misconceptions  of  the  whole  genius 
of  Christianity,  and  of  Him  who  is  Christianity,  we  see  among  the  teachers 
who  pay  Him  high  homage  and  conventional  respect,  as  well  as  among 
those  who  profess  to  reject  Him  and  His  mission  !  Some  people  take  a 
great  deal  more  trouble  to  understand  Buddha  than  they  do  to  understand 
Christ.  How  little,  too,  the  mass  of  men  know  about  Him  !  It  is  enough 
to  break  one's  heart  to  look  round  one,  and  think  that  He  has  been  so  long 
time  with  the  world,  and  that  this  is  all  which  has  come  of  it. 

Light  has  been  shining  for  all  these  eighteen  hundred  years,  and  yet 
the  mist  is  so  little  cleared  away,  and  the  ice  is  so  little  melted.  The  great 
proof  that  the  world  is  bad  is  that  it  does  not  believe  in  Jesus  Christ  the 
Son  of  God,  and  that  He  has  stood  before  it  for  nearly  nineteen  centuries 
now,  and  so  few  have  been  led  to  turn  to  Him  with  the  adoring  cry,  "  My 
Lord  and  my  God."  But  let  us  narrow  our  thoughts  to  ourselves.  This 
question  comes  to  many  of  you  who  shall  read  these  lines  in  a  very  pointed 
way.  You  have  known  about  Jesus  Christ  all  your  lives,  and  yet  in  a  real, 
deep  sense  you  do  not  know  Him  at  this  moment.  For  the  knowledge 
of  which  I  speak  is  the  knowledge  of  acquaintance  with  a  person  rather 
than  the  knowledge  that  a  man  may  have  of  a  book.  And  it  is  the  know- 
ledge of  experience.  Have  you  that?  Do  you  know  Christ  as  a  man 
knows  his  friend,  or  do  you  know  Him  as  you  know  about  Julius  Coesar  ? 
Do  you  know  Christ  because  you  live  with  Him  and  He  with  you,  or  do 
you  know  about  Him  in  that  fashion  in  which  a  man  in  a  great  city  knows 
about  his  neighbour  across  the  street  there,  that  has  lived  beside  him  for 
five-and-twenty  years  and  never  spoken  to  him  once  all  the  time?  Is  that 
your  knowledge  of  Christ?  If  so,  it  is  no  knowledge  at  all.  "I  have 
heard  of  Him  by  the  hearing  of  the  ear,"  describes  all  the  acquaintance 
which  a  great  many  of  us  have  with  Him. 

Oil,  my  brother  !  the  very  fact  that  He  has  been  so  long  with  you  is  the 
reason  why  you  know  so  little  about  Him.  People  that  live  close  by  some- 
thing that  men  come  from  the  ends  of  the  earth  to  see  have  often  never 
seen  it.  A  man  may  have  lived  all  his  life  witliin  sound  of  the  Niagara, 
and  perhaps  never  have  gone  to  look  at  the  rush  of  the  waters. 

Is  that  what  you  do  with  Jesus  Ciirist  ?  Are  you  so  accustomed  to  hear 
about  Him  that  you  do  not  know  Him  ;  having  so  long  heard  of  Him  that 
you  never  came  to  see  Him  ? 

249 


ALL  STRENGTH  IN  CHRLST. 
/  can  do  all  things  in  Him  tliat  sirengthetuth  tne. — Pkil,  iv.  13. 

S-DtemberG  *' ^  ^^^  ^°  ^^^  things."  That  rendering  of  Paul's  words 
does  not  exactly  represent  what  he  really  meant.  In  one 
aspect  they  say  more  than  Paul  sa)  s,  and  in  another  less.  For  he  is  not 
only  speaking  about  what  he  can  do,  but  also  of  what  he  can  endure. 
Action  is  but  half — and  often  the  lesser  half — of  life  ;  so  we  have  to  widen 
the  expression  to  include  both  doing  and  bearing.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
"all  things"  must  be  subject  to  some  limitations.  Common  sense  dictates 
these.  The  Apostle  is  making  no  preposterous  claim  to  a  kind  of  quasi- 
omnipotence.  He  felt  himself  ready  for  anything  that  might  come.  **I 
am  instructed  both  to  be  full  and  to  be  hungry,  both  to  abound  and  to 
suffer  need.  ...  I  have  learned  in  whatsoever  state  I  am,  therewith  to  be 
content."  But  "content"  is  not  Paul's  meaning.  The  plain  rendering  is 
"  self-sufficient."  Take  away  from  that  word  all  the  arrogance  that  is  in  it, 
and  understand  it  to  mean  independent  of  circnmstances  or  lord  of  externals. 
What  Paul  says  is  that  he  is  ready  for  everything,  equipped  for  any  fortune, 
able  to  do  whatever  is  commanded,  able  to  bear  whatever  is  imposed. 

We  have  here  just  the  true  attitude  for  a  Christian  soul  :  to  be  so  far 
self-sufficing  as  that  externals  do  not  gain  the  mastery.  We  should  be  able 
always  to  keep  the  bilge-water  down  by  working  the  pumps,  and  to  have 
our  hands  on  the  tiller  and  follow  the  course  which  the  Alaster-Navigatoi 
has  chartered  out  for  us,  whatever  winds  blow  or  waves  roll.  So  shall  we 
have  strength  for  all  things,  and  be  equal  to  any  variety  of  fortune.  In  some 
great  cathedral  the  temperature  will  vary  little  between  midsummer  and  mid- 
winter. The  walls  are  thick  ;  and  it  matters  not  whether  the  sunshine  be 
blazing  on  the  piazza  outside  or  whether  icicles  be  hanging  from  the  cornices 
of  the  building,  there  is  the  same  atmosphere  within.  We  should  carry  our 
atmospheres  with  us.  Our  spiritual  heat,  like  the  temperature  of  our  bodies, 
should  keep  pretty  nearly  the  same  at  the  poles  and  at  the  equator. 

"  I  have  strength  for  everything."  Now,  that  may  be  said  in  a  great 
many  different  keys  and  moods,  and  may  be  the  expression  of  almost 
opposite  feelings.  It  may  be  the  proud  boast  of  an  unnatural  and  over- 
strained stoicism  which  tries  to  crush  down  the  sensibilities  of  human  nature, 
and  thereby  destroys  the  nature  that  it  is  trying  to  steady.  Or  the  boast 
may  come  from  an  underestimate  of  the  difficulties  and  vicissitudes  that 
fall  to  be  encountered  in  every  life,  and  an  over-estimate  of  our  poor 
powers  to  face  them.  Many  a  young  man  flings  himself  into  the  battle  of 
life  with  an  unbounded  confidence  that  he  is  equipped  for  all  its  events,  and 
by  the  time  that  grey  hairs  begin  to  show  upon  the  black  head,  instead  o 
saying,  "I  can  do  all  things,"  he  is  ready  to  wail,  "I  can  do  nothing;  I 
am  an  utter  failure."  But  "  I  can  do  all  things"  may  be  said,  and  ought 
to  be  said,  by  us,  as  the  result  of  our  simply  leaning  on  an  Almighty 
strength.  Then  levity,  ignorance  of  one's  own  weakness,  ignorance  of 
the  serried  ranks  of  enemies  that  beset  every  attempt  at  noble  life,  dis- 
appear, and  what  on  other  lips  sounds  like  the  most  arrogant  and  insane 
presumption,  which  is  sure  to  be  punished,  comes  to  be  an  utterance  fitted 
for  the  lips  of  the  humblest  and  the  most  self-distrustful.  "  I  have  strength 
for  anything,"  and  yet  not  1,  "but  Christ  in  me." 

2;o 


TRIUMPHANT  CONFIDENCE. 

/  rejoice  in  the  Lord  greatly,  that  now  at  length  ye  have  revived  you? 

thought  of  me Not  that  I  speak   in   respect  of  want :  for  I  rave 

learned^  tn  whatsoever  state  I  am,  therewith  to  be  content. — Phil.  iv.  lo,  ii. 

g  ,  ,  -  I  BELIEVE  that  one  of  the  great  secrets  of  the  weakness  of 
modern  Christianity  is  that  practically  that  doctrine  -  no  ! 
do  not  let  us  call  it  a  doctrine  — that  fact  of  the  dwelling  of  the  Christian 
soul  in  Christ,  and  the  reciprocal  indwelling  of  Christ,  in  every  believing 
heart,  has,  to  a  large  extent,  faded  out  of  popular  conceptions  of  Christianity. 
We  talk  a  great  deal,  and  we  cannot  talk  too  much,  but  we  may  talk  too 
exclusively,  about  Christ  for  us.  We  must  regard  that  as  the  basis  of  all 
Christ's  work.  But  then  the  New  Testament  builds  upon  it  this  other 
truth — Christ  in  us  and  we  in  Christ.  I  would  that  Christian  people  realised 
more  as  a  simple  fact — mystical,  if  you  like,  and  none  the  worse  for  that — • 
that  there  is  a  union  between  the  believing  spirit  and  the  Christ  whom 
it  trusts,  so  close  and  intimate  as  that  local  metaphors  of  mutual  indwelling 
do  but  partially  express  it.  As  the  branch  is  in  the  vine  so  are  we  in 
Christ.  As  the  soul  is  in  the  body  so  is  Christ  in  us  ;  the  Life  of  our  lives, 
the  Soul  of  our  souls.  And  it  is  by  union  with  Jesus  Christ,  and  by  this 
most  deep  and  real  dwelling  in  Him  as  the  atmosphere,  in  which  we  "live 
and  move  and  have  our  being,"  that  the  word  ceases  to  be  presumption 
and  becomes  humility  ;  self-distrust  and  confidence  in  Him. 

I  wish  sometimes  that  I  could  get  Christian  people  to  take  the  epistles, 
and  read  them  through  once,  for  one  purpose,  that  is,  to  note  the  variety 
of  applications  in  which  that  phrase  "  in  Christ  Jesus  "  occurs.  If  anybody 
would  do  that,  he  would  get  a  new  impression  of  the  reality  and  of  the 
prominence  in  the  whole  scheme  of  Christianity,  of  the  thought — *'m 
Him." 

How  is  that  indwelling  to  be  realised?  You  perhaps  say,  **  Oh  ! 
such  a  union  with  Christ  is  mystical ;  it  is  far  away  from  our  ordinary 
experience."  Yes  !  I  believe  it  is  far  away  from  ordinary  experience. 
But  there  is  no  reason  why  it  should  be  so.  For,  however  profound  the 
thought,  the  way  of  making  it  a  fact  in  our  lives  is  as  plain  as  the  thought 
is  profound.  You  are  in  Him  when  you  trust  Him.  You  are  not  in  Him 
if  your  confidence  is  in  self,  or  in  creatures.  You  are  not  in  Him  if  all  the 
day  long  your  mind  is  busy  with  other  thoughts,  and  your  heart  with  other 
affections.  But  you  are  in  Him  if  you  are  occupied,  heart  and  mind,  with 
Him  and  with  His  truth.  You  are  in  Him  if,  trusting  Him,  and  having 
Him  present  by  the  direction  of  mind  and  heart  towards  Him,  as  the  motive 
and  power  of  your  lives,  you  serve  Him  with  lowly  obedience.  And  you 
are  not  in  Him  if  you  assert  your  own  independence,  and  perk  yourself  up 
in  His  face  and  say,  "  Not  as  Thou  wilt,  but  as  I  will."  Trust,  meditation, 
practical  obedience — these  are  the  three  angels  that  guide  us  into  the  very 
presence-chamber  of  the  Most  High. 

251 


SPIRITUAL  DECLENSION  AND  CHANGE. 

Be  astonished,  O  ye  heavens,  at  this  !  and  be  ye  very  desolate,  saith  the 
Lord ;  for  My  people  have  committed  two  evils  :  they  have  forsaken  Me, 
the  Fountain  of  living  waters,  and  hewed  them  out  cisterns,  broken  cisterns, 
that  can  hold  no  water. — ^Jer.  ii.  12,  13. 

It  does  seem  inexplicable  that  if  a  man  has  once  got  a 
ep  em  er  .  gij,-f^pse  of  the  beauty,  preciousness,  and  sweetness  of 
Christ,  His  love  and  His  power,  his  eyes  should  ever  turn  away  or  his 
heart  ever  become  unfaithful.  And  yet  it  is  the  history  of  the  Church 
as  a  whole,  and  of  the  individual  members  of  it.  As  to  the  Church  as  a 
whole,  how  early  it  needed  to  be  said,  "Ye  have  left  your  first  love"  ! 
and  how  constantly  it  has  had  to  be  repeated  ever  since  !  The  apostles 
were  not  cold  in  their  graves  when  grievous  wolves  began  to  enter  in  and 
spoil  the  flock.  The  law  seems  to  work  almost  inevitably  that  close  on  the 
heels  of  every  period  of  earnestness  and  quickened  life  there  shall  follow  a 
period  of  reaction  and  torpor.  However  high  the  arrow  is  shot,  the  impulse 
that  sped  it  on  its  way  heavenwards  soon  seems  to  die,  and  gravitation 
begins,  and  down  it  comes  again. 

Look  at  Germany  after  the  Reformation.  Look  at  the  England  of  the 
eighteenth  century  after  the  outburst  of  Puritanism.  Look  at  the  deadness 
that  fell  upon  the  first  periods  of  this  century  after  the  strong  new  life  of 
Whitefield  and  the  Wesleys.  Look  all  over  the  history  of  the  Church,  and 
you  find  the  same  thing.  Then  ask  the  question  :  Is  there  any  more  con- 
vincing proof  of  a  living  Christ  tjian  the  fact  that  the  Church  has  not  been 
dead  and  buried  long  ago  ?  And  is  there  any  better  sign  that  Christianity 
is  not  of  man  than  the  fact  that  it  has  always  been  so  hard  for  men  to  keep 
themselves  for  any  length  of  time  upon  its  level  ? 

I  am  sure  there  is  not  a  man  or  a  woman  reading  this  that  has  not  had 
moments  of  illumination,  when  the  conscience  was  quickened,  and  things  that 
they  thought  they  believed  all  their  days  flared  out  upon  them  with  altogether 
strange  and  startling  force  and  reality.  And  what  has  become  of  the  moments, 
what  has  become  of  the  impressions  that  were  made  upon  us  then  ?  Where 
have  they  all  disappeared  to  ?  and  what  is  left  behind  when  the  heavens  have 
closed  again  ?  Use  and  wont  has  gathered  about  us  once  more  ;  the  old 
opium  soporifics  that  have  lulled  us  to  sleep  so  often  have  been  quaffed 
again  ;  and  after  the  momentary  illumination  and  expansion,  we  have  fallen 
back  into  the  miserable  old  ruts  of  half  belief  and  whole  indifi"erence,  and 
yet  call  ourselves  Christians.  I  was  reading  in  a  book  of  African  travel  the 
other  day  that  the  great  moun Iain-peak  of  Kilima-njaro  will  lie  for  weeks 
and  weeks  hidden  behind  the  mis'.s,  except  now  and  then  in  the  morning, 
when,  like  an  apparition,  its  wedge  forces  itself  through  the  rolling  vapour, 
and  for  half-an-hour  it  gleams  there,  the  lord  of  the  landscape  ;  and  then 
it  is  blotted  out.  How  many  of  our  lives  in  their  morning  hours  had  a 
vision,  when  the  rolling  lies,  unsubstantial  but  opacjue,  which  veiled  the 
realities  have  been  swept  away,  and  for  an  instant  you  saw  what  is  always 
there,  whether  you  see  it  or  not,  the  reality  of  God  in  Christ,  His  love  and 
His  work  for  you  ? 

252 


THE  FASCINATING  INFLUENCES  OF  THE  WORLD. 

OfooUsh  Galaiians,  who  did  bewitch  you,  before  whose  eyes  Jesus  Christ 
was  openly  set  forth  crucified? — Gal.  iii.  I. 

What  glittering  eye  is  it,  envious  and  covetous,  that  has 
Septemtoer  3.  ,4  overlooked  "  you,  as  they  say  about  infants  unaccountably 
wasting,  and  so  made  you  to  wither  away  ? 

Let  us  understand  clearly  about  this  matter,  that  whatever  blame  may 
be  laid  at  the  door  of  external  causes,  and  of  what  we  may  call  fascinations, 
what  gives  them  all  their  power  is  our  own  weakness  and  folly.  It  it  all 
very  well  to  analyse  the  causes  of  religious  declension,  and  to  try  and 
guard  ourselves  against  them,  but  that  is  leading  men  upon  a  false  quest, 
unless  we  remind  ourselves  at  the  beginning  that  the  real  cause  lies  within. 
No  outward  temptation,  nothing  in  earth,  hell,  or  heaven,  has  any  power 
to  turn  away  my  eyes  from  Jesus  Christ  unless  I  choose  to  give  it  the  power. 
I  am  not  to  put  the  blame  of  my  feeble  Christian  life,  or  of  my  utter 
irreligion  upon  anything  or  anybody,  but  only  myself.  If  I  had  not  com- 
bustibles in  my  heart,  it  would  do  me  no  harm  to  put  ever  so  fierce  a  light 
to  it.  But  if  I  carry  about  a  keg  of  gunpowder  within  me,  I  am  not  to 
blame  the  match  if  there  comes  an  explosion.  It  is  because  our  hearts 
do  not  find  in  Jesus  Christ  all  that  they  crave  that  we  are  unfaithful  and 
turn  away  from  Him  ;  and  it  is  because  our  hearts  are  foolish  and  bad  that 
they  do  not  find  in  Jesus  Christ  all  that  they  crave.  If  you  and  I  were  as 
we  should  be,  there  would  not  be  a  desire  in  us  that  would  not  be  met 
in  our  loving  Lord,  in  His  sweetness  and  grace.  And  if  there  were  not 
a  desire  in  us  that  was  not  met  in  our  loving  Lord's  sweetness  and  grace, 
then  all  these  temptations  might  play  upon  us  innocuously,  and  we  should 
walk  through  the  fire  and  not  be  harmed.  So  let  us  take  it  all  to  ourselves, 
and  remember  that  whatever  temptations  may  be  brought  to  bear  upon  us, 
we,  we  alone,  are  responsible  for  the  effects  that  they  produce. 

Who,  then,  are  the  fascinators  ?  I  am  not  going  to  deal  at  all  with  the 
immediate  occasion  of  these  words,  which  referred  to  the  Galatians  falling 
away  from  the  doctrinal  Christianity  preached  by  Paul ;  but  I  will  just 
remind  you  in  passing  that  the  thing  which  caused  all  this  vehemence  of 
argument  and  expostulation  on  the  part  of  the  Apostle  was  that  the  Galatian 
Christians  had  listened  to  teachers  who  did  not  deny  salvation  by  faith  in 
Jesus  Christ,  but  who  sought  to  make  an  outward  rite  necessary,  side  by 
side  with  faith.  It  makes  no  difference  to  the  principle  involved  that  the 
rite  which  the  Judaising  teachers  tried  to  force  on  the  Gentiles  who  believed 
was  circumcision,  and  that  the  rites  which  the  modern  Judaisers  make 
essential  are  Baptism  and  Lord's  Supper.  The  principle  is  identical  ;  and 
wherever  you  get  an  attempt  to  mix  up  these  two  things,  salvation  through 
faith  in  Jesus  Christ  and  salvation  through  sacraments,  the  slcdge-liammer 
blows  of  this  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  come  down  upon  the  unnatural 
amalgam  and  smite  it  to  pieces.  It  is  hard  for  men  to  keep  up  on  the 
level  of  the  New  Testament  and  of  its  spiritual  conceptions  of  worship. 
It  is  hard  to  use  ordinances  and  rites  as  merely  material  aids  to  spiritual 
apprehension  and  affection.  It  is  hard  to  keep  them  in  their  due  place  of 
subordination. 

253 


THE  POWER  OF  THE  FLESH. 

Thus  saiih  the  Lord,  Cursed  is  the  man  that  trusteth  in  man,  andmakeih 
flesh  his  arm. — Jer.  xvii.  5. 

The  "flesh"  is  ever   apt  to  make    '* sacraments"  out  of 

P  ni  er  .  «'Qj.Jinauces,"  and  to  blend  in  disastrous  union  a  faith  in 
Jesus  Christ  and  a  faith  in  them.  It  cannot  be  done.  It  must  be  the  one 
thing  or  the  other.  The  reh'ance  on  the  sacraments  will  in  the  long  run 
kill  the  faith  in  Christ,  or  the  faith  in  Christ  drive  out  the  reliance  on  the 
sacraments.  Little  as  it  may  seem  so  at  first,  all  experience  has  proved 
that  Paul  spoke  with  unerring  instinct  when  he  declared  to  the  Galatians 
that  if  they  yielded  to  the  teaching  of  the  Judaisers,  and  submitted  to  circum- 
cision as  necessary,  they  would  get  no  good  from  Christ.  He  must  be  all 
or  nothing.  This  was  the  earliest  corruption  of  Christianity.  It  subsists 
perennially  through  the  generations  ;  it  crops  up  ever  and  anon  when  we 
thought  it  was  cut  down.  It  is  all  about  us  in  England  to-day,  devastating 
the  Churches  ;  and  its  roots  are  in  each  of  us.  Nothing  but  Christ's  Cross, 
and  nothing  as  bringing  the  power  of  that  Cross  into  my  life  but  my  simple 
faith — that  is  what  Paul  preached  ;  and  if  he  could  have  stood  to-day,  and  seen 
men  running  after  sacraments  and  ritual  and  outward  forms  and  the  aesthetics 
of  worship,  and  turning  the  preacher  of  a  Gospel  into  the  priest  of  a  sacra- 
ment, his  voice  would  have  rung  out  in  as  earnest  and  as  surprised 
remonstrance  :  "  Oh,  foolish  !  who  hath  bewitched  you  ?" 

But  we  are  all  in  danger  from  other  fascinations  and  seducers,  such  as 
worldly  cares,  occupation,  treasures.  *'As  thy  servant  was  busy  here  and 
there,  he  was  gone,"  said  the  negligent  soldier,  to  account  for  the  escape 
of  the  prisoner  in  his  charge.  That  is  exactly  the  history  of  the  way  in 
which  a  great  many  men's  Christianity  trickles  out  of  them  without  their 
knowing  it.  They  are  too  busy  to  look  after  it,  or  even  to  notice  its  escape, 
and  so  drop,  drop,  drop,  slow  and  unnoticed  through  the  leak  it  slips,  until 
there  is  none  left ;  and  the  man  fancies  the  vessel  is  full,  till  he  comes  to  need 
to  draw  on  it,  and  then  !  How  many  of  us,  I  wonder,  are  like  the  elm  trees 
that  have  sent  their  top  roots  down  to  a  layer  of  innutritious  earth,  and  are 
standing  magnificent  stems,  but  hollow  inside,  ready  to  be  blown  over  in  the 
first  gale  of  wind  ? 

Oh  !  how  much  Christian  life  is  murdered  every  year  !  How  much 
devotion  dies  in  the  air  of  the  business  street  !  How  hard  it  is  for  you  that 
have  to  go  away  every  Monday  morning,  and  keep  at  it  all  the  week  long, 
to  keep  up  the  fervour  of  your  faith  and  the  simplicity  of  your  piety  I 
Brother  !  there  is  only  one  way  to  do  it,  and  that  is  to  keep  near  to  the 
Master,  whose  strength  will  hold  you  up.  The  attrition  of  worldly  cares 
eats  away  the  impression  upon  our  hearts.  As  the  soft  south  wind  gradually 
eats  away  the  inscriptions  off  the  temples  that  may  front  it,  so  the  writing 
upon  our  hearts  is  l)lurred  by  the  constant,  soft,  moist  breath  of  earth's  busi- 
ness and  cares  impinging  upon  it. 

And  the  fascinations  that  slay  most  of  us  are  all  summed  up  in  the 
solemn  old  words  :  '*  The  lust  of  the  flesh,  and  the  lust  of  the  eye,  and  the 
pride  of  life."      These  bewitch  you,  before  whose  eyes  Christ  was  set  forth. 

254 


THE  EVIL  EYE. 

If  thine  eye  be  evil,  thy  whole  body  shall  be  full  of  darkness. — Matt.  vi.  23. 

g  .  .  .  J  The  reference  to  the  evil  eye  gives  especial  emphasis  to  the 
words  in  Galatians,  '''•  Before  whose  eyes  Jesus  Christ  was 
set  forth."  For  the  evil  eye,  according  to  the  old  superstition,  operated  most 
pow-erfully  on  the  persons  who  allowed  their  eyes  to  dwell  upon  it.  If  the 
Galatians  had  kept  their  gaze  fixed  on  Jesus  Christ,  the  tempter's  fatal  glance 
would  have  had  no  power  over  them.  The  Galatian  Christians,  with 
characteristic  Celtic  fickleness,  had  fallen  away  from  the  apostolic  doctrine, 
and  had  cooled  in  the  fervour  of  their  love  to  Himself.  It  looks,  thinks 
Paul,  as  if  some  malignant  sorcerer  had  affected  them. 

If  we  would  escape  the  power  of  these  evil  eyes,  we  must  so  order  our 
religious  lives  as  to  keep  the  facts  of  Christ's  work  and  death  for  us  ever 
before  our  minds.  We  shall  not  be  able  to  keep  that  vision  of  Christ 
crucified  before  our  eyes  in  the  midst  of  daily  distractions  unless  it  is  stamped 
deep  on  mind  and  heart  by  the  habit  of  quiet  meditation.  The  absence  of 
that  habit  is  one  chief  reason  for  the  weakness  of  so  much  of  our  modern 
Christianity.  Meditation  is  almost  a  lost  art  amongst  us.  I  wonder  how 
many  of  us  there  are  who,  from  one  week's  end  to  another,  ever  spend  ten 
minutes'  quiet  thought  upon  the  Cross,  not  so  much  for  the  purpose  of 
investigation  or  confirmation  or  proof,  but  simply  for  the  purpose  of  getting 
the  sweetness  of  the  thought  more  and  more  into  our  hearts,  and  the  power 
of  it  more  and  more  into  our  lives  ? 

How  often  do  you  realise  that  great  truth  of  Christ  crucified  for  you  ? 
Do  you  ever  think  of  it  ?  Does  the  memory  of  Him  and  of  His  death  for 
you  come  to  you  in  your  daily  work  and  struggles  ? 

I  beseech  you,  fix  your  thoughts  and  your  love  on  Him,  and  look  away 
from  all  else.  Make  Him  and  His  love  and  His  death  the  theme  of  your 
thankful  meditation  in  many  a  quiet  hour  of  high  communion.  Try  to  have 
that  vision  as  your  companion  everywhere,  and  on  every  common  thing  to 
see  "  placarded  "  the  Crucified  Christ.  That  sight  will  take  the  brightness 
out  of  many  a  false  glitter,  as  a  poor  candle  pales  before  the  electric  light,  or 
as  the  sun  puts  even  it  to  shame.  It  will  make  many  a  tempting  fiend, 
who  squats  at  your  ear  to  drop  his  poison  in,  start  up  in  his  own  shape.  If 
you  look  to  Jesus  crucified  for  you,  He  will  give  you  "  power  to  tread  upon 
the  serpent  and  the  scorpion,  and  nothing  shall  by  any  means  hurt  you.' 
You  may  be  as  powerless  of  yourself  before  temptations  as  a  humming-bird 
before  a  snake  ;  but  if  you  look  fixedly  to  Him,  neither  the  glittering  eye  of 
the  serpent  nor  the  forked  tongue  with  its  hiss  will  harm  or  frighten  you. 
And  the  question  of  Paul,  instead  of  being  one  of  indignant  rebuke  and 
wonder,  will  become  to  each  of  us  the  expression  of  our  triumphant  confi- 
dence that  we  shall  "tread  upon  the  serpent  and  the  adder,"  and  conquer 
our  tempters:  "Who  is  he  that  will  bewitch  us,  if  before  our  eyes  there 
ever  shines  Christ  crucified  ? " 

255 


THE  AMULET. 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  gt'ory,  save  in  the  Cross  of  ottr  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
through  which  the  world  hath  been  crucified  unto  Me,  unU  1  unto  the 
world. — Gal.  vi.  14. 

„  .  .„  The  counter- charm  that  keeps  a  man  safe  from  the  enchant- 
oep  em  er  .  ^^.^gj^^g  q£  ^Y\q.  world  lies  in  these  words  :  "  Before  whose  eyes 
Jesus  Christ  was  evidently  set  forth  crucified."  The  secret  of  security  is, 
do  not  look  at  the  glittering  eye  that  would  fascinate  you.  And  the  way  to 
do  that  is  to  fix  your  eye  on  something  else.  A  man  that  has  to  walk  across 
a  foaming  torrent  upon  some  narrow  plank  knows  that  the  only  way  to  keep 
himself  steady  is  to  fix  his  eye  upon  something  on  the  farther  side.  If  he 
looks  to  his  feet,  or  the  bridge,  or  the  water  as  it  boils  amongst  the  rocks 
below,  down  he  will  go.  The  one  safety  is,  fix  your  eye  upon  the  point  to 
which  you  go,  and  keep  steadfastly  looking  at  that ;  and  your  feet  will  take 
care  of  themselves. 

And  so  it  is  in  this  matter.  If  we  are  to  have  the  power  of  turning  away 
from  these  things  that  tempt  us,  and  are  thus  to  deprive  the  sorcerer  of  his 
influence,  because  we  will  not  look  at  him,  we  must  look  at  Jesus  Christ. 
Hearts  and  minds  that  are  occupied  with  Him  will  not  be  at  leisure  for  lower 
and  grosser  tastes.  An  empty  vessel  let  down  into  the  ocean  will  have  its 
sides  bulged  in  far  more  quickly  than  one  that  is  filled.  Fill  your  hearts,  and 
keep  them  full,  with  Jesus  Christ,  and  they  will  be  able  to  resist  the  pressure 
of  temptation. 

The  true  way  to  conquer  temptations  is  not  to  fight  them  in  detail,  but  to 
go  up  into  a  loftier  region,  where  they  cease  to  be  temptations.  How  is  it 
that  grown  men  do  not  like  the  sweetmeats  that  used  to  tempt  them  when 
they  were  children  ?  They  have  outgrown  them.  Then  outgrow  the 
temptations  of  the  world  !  How  is  it  that  there  are  no  mosquitoes  nor 
malaria  on  the  mountain  tops?  They  cannot  rise  above  the  level  of  the 
swamps  by  the  river.  Go  up  to  the  mountain  top,  and  neither  malaria  nor 
mosquitoes  will  follow  you — which  being  interpreted  is,  live  near  Jesus 
Christ,  and  keep  your  hearts  and  minds  occupied  with  Him,  and  you  will 
dwell  in  a  region  high  above  the  temptations  which  buzz  and  sting,  which 
infest  and  slay,  on  the  lower  levels. 

But  remember  that  it  is  the  contemplation  of  Christ  crucified  which  has 
this  power  to  elevate  and  act  as  a  charm  against  the  spells  of  evil.  There 
is  not  substance  or  transforming  power  enough  in  a  Christianity  without  a 
Cross  to  overcome  the  world.  It  has  always  been  the  case  that  when 
Christ's  death  has  ceased  to  be  the  centre  of  the  Church's  faith  and  testi- 
mony, the  Church  has  become  worldly.  When  men  have  not  had  a 
crucified  Christ  to  gaze  upon,  they  have  turned  to  look  at  the  fiiscinators, 
and  their  very  life  has  been  sucked  out  of  them.  It  is  only  by  His  Cross 
that  the  world  becomes  dead  to  me,  and  I  unto  the  world.  The  victorious 
power  of  Christianity  lies  in  the  continual  contemplation  of  Christ's  death 
for  me. 

256 


THE  ATTACHMENTS   OF  FAITH. 

These  all  died  in  faith,  not  having  received  the  promises,  but  having  seen 
them  and  greeted  them  from  afar,  and  having  confessed  that  they  were 
strangers  and  pilgrims  on  the  earth. —  Heb.  xi.  13. 

,^  .  THEgreatroll-callof  heroes  of  faith  in  this  chapter  (Heb.  xi.) 
e^)  eiiiu„r  .  g^^g  ^y^^^  ^j-^g  supposition  that  the  living  spirit  of  religion 
was  the  same  in  Old  and  in  New  Testament  times.  In  both  it  was  faith 
which  knit  men  to  God.  It  has  often  been  alleged  that  that  great  word 
faith  has  a  different  signification  in  this  Epistle  from  that  wliich  it  has  in 
the  other  New  Testament  writings.  The  allegation  is  largely  true  ;  in  so 
far  as  the  things  believed  are  concerned  they  are  extremly  different,  but  it 
is  not  true  in  so  far  as  the  person  trusted  or  in  so  far  as  the  act  of  trusting 
are  concerned, — these  are  identical.  It  was  no  mere  temporal  and  earthly 
promise  on  which  the  faith  of  these  patriarchs  was  builded.  They  looked 
indeed  for  the  land,  but  in  lookijig  for  the  land  they  looked  *'  for  the  City 
which  hath  foundations  "  ;  and  their  future  hopes  had  the  same  dim  haze 
of  ignorance,  and  the  same  questions  unresolved  about  persi^ective  and 
relative  distances  which  our  future  hopes  have  ;  and  their  faith,  whatever 
were  its  contents,  was  fundamentally  the  same  out  of  it  soul  casting  itself 
upon  God  which  is  the  essence  of  our  faith  in  the  Divine  Son  in  whom  God 
is  made  manifest.  So  with  surface  difference  there  is  a  deep-lying,  absolute 
oneness  in  the  faith  of  the  Old  Testament  and  ours,  in  their  essential  nature, 
in  the  Object  which  they  grasp,  and  in  their  practical  effects  upon  life. 
Therefore  these  words,  describing  what  faith  did  for  the  world's  grey  fore- 
fathers, have  a  more  immediate  bearing  upon  us  than  at  first  sight  may 
appear,  and  may  suggest  for  us  some  thoughts  about  the  proper,  practical 
issues  of  Christian  faith  in  our  daily  lives. 

Observe  that  the  words,  "And  were  persuaded  of  them,"  in  our  Old 
Version  are  a  gloss, — no  part  of  the  original  text.  Observe,  further,  that 
the  adverb  "  afar  off''  is  intended  to  apply  to  both  the  clauses  :  "  Having 
seen  them "  and  "  embraced  them."  And  that,  consequently,  "  embraced" 
must  necessarily  be  an  inadequate  representation  of  the  writer's  idea ;  for 
you  cannot  embrace  a  thing  that  is  "afar  off";  and  to  "embrace  the 
promises  "  was  the  very  thing  that  these  men  did  not  do.  The  meaning  of 
the  v/ord  is,  here,  not  e/nbraced,  but  saluted,  ox  greeted ;  and  the  figure  that 
lies  in  it  is  a  very  beautiful  one.  As  some  traveller  topping  the  water-shed 
may  see  far  off  the  white  porch  of  his  home,  and  wave  a  greeting  to  it, 
though  it  be  distant,  while  his  heart  goes  out  over  all  the  intervening,  weary 
leagues  ;  or  as  some  homeward-bound  crew  catch,  away  yonder  on  the 
horizon,  the  tremulous  low  line  that  is  home,  and  welcome  it  with  a  shout 
of  joy,  though  many  a  billow  dash  and  break  between  them  and  it,  these 
men  looked  across  the  weary  waste,  and  saw  far  away  ;  and  as  they  saw, 
their  hearts  went  out  towards  the  things  that  were  promised,  because  they 
"judged  Him  faithful  that  had  promised."  And  that  is  the  attitude  and 
the  act  which  all  true  faith  in  God  ought  to  operate  in  us. 

257  S 


FAITH'S   VISION. 

Faith  is  the  assurance  of  things  hoped  for,  the  proving  of  things  not 
seen. — Heb.  xi.  i. 

-  People  say,  "  Seeing  is  believing."     I  should  be  disposed 

ep  em  er  .  ^^  ^^^^^  ^^^  aphorisin  right  round,  and  to  say,  "  Believing  is 
seeing,"  For  there  is  a  clearer  insight,  and  a  more  immediate,  direct 
contact  with  the  thing  beheld,  and  a  deeper  certitude  in  the  vision  of  faith 
than  in  llic  poor  purbhnd  s'ght  of  sense,  all  fiill  of  illusions,  and  which  has 
no  real  possession  in  it  of  the  things  which  it  beliolds.  The  sight  that 
Faith  gives  is  solid,  substantial,  clear,  certain.  If  I  might  so  sa}-,  the  true 
exercise  of  Faith  is  to  stereoscope  the  dim,  ghostlike  realities  of  the  future, 
and  to  make  them  stand  out  solid  in  relief  there  before  us.  And  he  who, 
clasping  the  hand,  and  if  I  might  so  say,  looking  through  the  eyes  of  God, 
sees  the  future,  in  humble  acceptance  of  His  great  words  of  promise,  in 
some  measure  as  God  sees  it — he  has  a  source  of  knowledge,  clear,  imme- 
diate, certain,  which  sense,  with  its  lies  and  imperfections,  is  altogether 
inadequate  even  to  symbolise.  The  vision  of  P^.ith  is  far  deeper,  far  more 
real,  far  more  correspondent  to  the  realities,  and  far  more  satisuing  to  the 
eye  that  gazes,  than  is  any  of  the  sight  of  sense.  Do  not  you  be  deceived 
or  seduced,  by  talk  that  assumes  to  be  profound  and  philosophical,  into 
beheving  that  when  you  venture  your  all  upon  God's  Word,  and  doing  so 
say,  "  I  know,  and  behold  mine  inheritance,"  you  are  saying  more  than 
calm  reason  and  common  sense  teaches  us.  We  have  the  thing,  and  we 
see  it,  if  we  believe  Him  that  in  His  Word  shows  it  to  us. 

This  vision  of  Faith,  with  all  its  blessed  clearness  and  certitude  and 
sufficiency,  is  not  a  direct  perception  of  the  things  promised,  but  only  a 
sight  of  them  in  the  promise.  And  does  that  make  it  less  blessed?  Does 
the  astronomer  that  sits  in  his  chamber,  and  when  he  would  most  care- 
fully observe  the  heavens,  looks  downwards  on  to  the  mirror  of  the  reJJectiug 
telescope  that  he  uses,  feel  that  he  sees  the  starry  liglUs  less  clearly  and 
less  really  than  when  he  gazes  up  into  the  abyss  itself  and  sees  Ihcin  there  ? 
Is  not  the  reflection  a  better  and  a  more  accurate  source  of  knowledge  for 
him  than  even  the  observation  direct  of  the  sky  would  be  ?  And  so,  if  we 
look  down  into  the  promise,  we  shall  see,  gleaming  and  glittering  there,  the 
starry  points  which  are  the  true  im  iges  adapted  to  our  present  sense  and 
power  of  reception  of  the  great  invis.ble  lights  al>ove.  God  be  thanked  that 
P'aith  looks  to  the  promises  ai.d  not  to  the  realities,  else  it  were  no  more 
F"aith,  and  would  lose  some  of  its  blessedness. 

Let  me  remind  you  that  this  vision  of  Faith  varies  in  the  measure  of  our 
faith.  It  is  not  always  the  same.  Refraction  brings  up  sometimes,  above 
the  surface  of  the  sea,  a  spectral  likeness  of  the  opposite  shore ;  and  men  stand 
now  and  tlien  upon  our  Southern  coasts,  and  for  an  hour  or  two,  in  some 
conditions  of  the  atmosphere,  they  see  the  low  sandhills  of  the  French  or  the 
Belgian  coast,  as  if  they  were  in  arm's  length.  So  Faiih,  refracting  the 
rays  of  light  that  strike  from  the  Throne  of  God,  brings  up  the  image,  and 
when  it  is  strong  the  image  is  clear,  and  when  it  flags  the  image  "fades 
away  into  the  light  of  common  day  "  ;  and  where  there  glowed  the  fair  out- 
lines of  the  far-off  land,  there  is  nothing  but  a  weary  wash  of  waters  and  a 
solitary  stretch  of  sea. 

258 


THE  DETACHMENTS   OF  FAITH. 

Ye  are  no  more  strangers  and  sojourners^  but  ye  are  fellow-citizens  with 
the  saints,  and  of  the  household  of  God, — Eph.  ii.  19. 

g         ,      ,g     Faith   produces   a  sense   of  detachment   from    the   pre- 
p  emoer     .     ^^^^^       "They   confessed    that   they   were   strangers   and 
pilgrims  on  the  earth." 

Now,  there  are  two  different  kinds  of  consciousness  that  we  are 
strangers  and  sojourners  here.  There  is  one  that  merely  comes  from  the 
consideration  of  the  natural  transiency  of  all  earthly  things  and  the  short- 
ness of  human  life  ;  there  is  another  that  comes  from  the  consciousness 
that  we  belong  to  another  kingdom  and  another  order.  A  "stro.nger''  is  a 
man  who,  in  a  given  constitution  of  things,  in  some  country  with  a  settled 
government,  owes  allegiance  to  another  king  and  belongs  to  another 
polity.  A  "  pilgrim  "  or  a  "  sojourner"  is  a  man  who  is  only  in  the  place 
where  he  now  is  for  a  little  while.  So  the  one  of  the  two  words  expresses 
the  idea  of  belonging  to  another  state  of  things,  and  the  other  expresses  the 
idea  of  transiency  in  the  present  condition. 

But  the  true  Christian  consciousness  of  being  "a  stranger  and  a 
sojourner "  comes,  not  from  any  thought  that  life  is  fleeting  and  ebbing 
away,  but  from  the  better  and  more  blessed  operation  of  the  faith  which 
reveals  the  things  promised,  and  knits  me  so  closely  to  them  that  I  cannot 
but  feel  separated  from  the  things  that  are  round  about  me.  INIen  that  live 
in  mountainous  countries,  when  they  come  down  into  the  plains,  be  it 
Switzerland  or  the  Highlands  or  anywhere  else,  pine  and  fade  away, 
sometimes  with  the  intensity  of  the  "  Heimweh,''  the  homesickness  which 
seizes  them.  And  we,  if  we  are  Christians,  and  belong  to  the  other  order 
of  things,  shall  feel  that  this  is  not  the  native  soil,  nor  here  the  home  in 
which  we  would  dwell.  Abraham  could  not  go  to  live  in  Sodom,  though 
Lot  went ;  and  he  and  his  son  and  grandson  kept  themselves  outside  of  the 
organisation  of  the  society  in  the  midst  of  which  they  dwelt,  because  they 
were  so  sure  that  they  belonged  to  another.  They  "  dwelt  in  tents  because 
they  looked  for  the  City.'' 

My  brother  !  does  your  faith  lessen  the  bonds  that  bind  you  to  earth  ? 
Does  it  detach  you  from  the  things  that  are  seen  and  temporal  ?  or  is  your 
life  ordered  upon  the  same  maxims,  and  devoted  to  the  pursuit  of  the  same 
objects,  and  gladdened  by  the  same  transitory  and  partial  successes,  and 
embittered  by  the  same  fleeting  and  light  afflictions  which  rule  and  sway 
as  the  tempest  sways  the  grass  on  the  sandbanks,  as  the  lives  that  are  rooted 
only  in  earth  ?  If  so,  what  business  have  we  to  call  ourselves  Christians  ? 
If  so,  how  can  we  say  that  we  live  by  faith  when  we  are  so  blind,  and  so 
incapable  of  seeing  afar  off,  that  the  smallest  trifle  beside  us  blots  out  from 
our  vision,  as  a  fourpenny-piece  held  up  against  your  eyeball  might  do  the 
sun  itself  in  the  heavens  there.  True  faith  detaches  a  man  from  this 
present.  If  your  faith  does  not  do  that,  look  into  it,  and  see  where  the 
falsity  of  it  is. 

259 


FAITH   TRIUMPHANT   IN   DEATH. 

He  looked  for  the  city  which  hath  the  foundations^  whose  Builder  and 
Maker  is  God. — Heb.  xi.  lO. 

Faith  triumphs  in  the  article  of  death.  "These  all  died 
'  in  faith,"  That  is  a  very  grand  thought  as  applied  to  those 
old  patriarchs,  that  just  because  all  their  lives  long  God  had  done  nothing 
for  them  of  what  He  had  promised,  therefore  they  died  believing  he  was 
going  to  do  it.  All  the  disappointments  fed  their  faith.  Because  the  words 
on  which  they  had  been  leaning  all  their  lives  had  not  come  to  a  fulfilment, 
therefore  they  must  be  true.  That  is  a  strange  paradox,  and  yet  it  is  the 
one  which  filled  these  men's  hearts  with  peace,  and  which  made  the  dying 
Jacob  break  in  upon  his  prophetic  swan-song,  at  the  close,  with  the  verse 
which  stands  in  no  relation  to  what  goes  before  it  or  what  comes  after  it, 
" I  have  waited  for  Thy  salvation,  O  Lord."  "These  all  died  in  faith" 
just  because  they  had  "  not  received  the  promises."  So,  for  us,  the  end  of 
life  may  have  a  faith  nurtured  by  disappointments,  made  more  sure  of 
everything  because  it  has  nothing ;  certain  that  he  calls  into  existence 
another  world  to  redress  the  balance  of  the  old,  because  here  there  has  been 
so  much  of  bitterness  and  weariness  and  woe. 

And  our  end,  like  theirs,  may  be  an  end  beautified  by  a  clear  vision  of 
the  things  that  "no  man  hath  seen,  nor  can  see"  ;  and  into  the  darkness 
there  may  come  for  us,  as  there  came  of  old  to  another,  an  open  heaven 
and  a  beam  of  God's  glory  smiting  us  on  the  face  and  changing  it  into  the 
face  of  an  angeL  And  so  there  may  come  for  us  all  in  that  article  and  act 
of  death  a  tranquil  and  cheerful  abandonment  of  the  life  which  has  been 
futile  and  frail,  except  when  thought  of  as  the  vestibule  of  Heaven.  Some 
men  cling  to  the  vanishing  skirts  of  this  earthly  hfe,  and  say,  "  I  will  not 
let  thee  go."  And  others  are  able  to  say,  "  Lord  !  I  have  waited  for  Thy 
Salvation."     "  Now  lettest  Thou  Thy  servant  depart  in  peace." 

"  These  all  died  in  faith  " ;  and  the  sorrows  and  disappointments  of  the 
past  made  the  very  background  on  which  the  bow  of  promise  spanned  the 
sky,  beneath  which  they  passed  into  the  Promised  Land.  "These  all 
died  in  faith  "  ;  with  a  vision  gleaming  upon  the  inward  sense  which  made 
the  sohtude  of  death  bliss,  and  with  a  calm  willingness  "to  depart,  and  to 
be  with  Christ,  which  is  far  better." 

Choose  whether  you  will  live  by  sense  and  die  in  sorrow,  or  whether 
you  will  live  by  the  faith  of  the  Son  of  God,  and  die  to  enter  "  the  City 
which  hath  foundations,"  which  He  has  built  for  them  that  love  Him,  and 
which  even  now,  "  in  seasons  of  calm  weather,"  we  can  see  shining  on  the 
hill- top  far  away. 

260 


THE  SILENCE  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

Many  other  signs  therefore  did  Jesus  in  the  presence  of  the  disciples, 
which  are  not  written  in  this  book  :  but  these  are  zvritten  that  ye  might 
believe  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God  ;  and  that  believing  ye  might 
have  life  in  His  Name. — ^JOHN  xx.  30,  31. 

8    t     b     17     "^^^  silence  of  Scripture  is  quite  as  eloquent  as  its  speech. 

ep  em  er  .  -p^^jj^^^  ^^^  instance,  of  how  many  things  in  the  Bible  are 
taken  for  granted  that  you  would  not  expect  to  be  taken  for  granted  in  a 
book  of  religious  instruction.  It  takes  for  granted  the  Being  of  a  God.  It 
takes  for  granted  our  relations  to  Him.  It  takes  for  granted  our  moral 
nature.  In  its  later  portions,  at  all  events,  it  takes  for  granted  the  future 
life.  Look  at  how  the  Bible,  as  a  whole,  passes  by,  without  one  word  of 
explanation  or  alleviation,  a  great  many  of  the  difficulties  v^^hich  gather 
round  some  of  its  teaching.  For  instance,  we  find  no  attempt  to  explain 
the  Divine  nature  of  our  Lord,  or  the  existence  of  the  three  Persons  in  the 
Godhead.  It  has  not  a  word  to  say  in  explanation  of  the  mystery  of  prayer, 
or  of  the  difficulty  of  reconciling  the  omnipotent  will  of  God  on  the  one 
hand  with  my  own  free  will  on  the  other.  It  has  not  a  word  to  explain, 
though  many  a  word  to  proclaim  and  enforce,  the  fact  of  Christ's  death  as 
the  atonement  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world.  Observe,  too,  how  scanty 
the  information  on  points  on  which  the  heart  craves  for  more  light.  Plow 
closely,  for  instance,  the  veil  is  kept  over  the  future  life  !  How  many 
questions  which  are  not  prompted  by  mere  curiosity  our  sorrow  and  our 
love  ask  in  vain  ! 

Nor  is  the  incompleteness  of  Scripture  as  a  historical  book  less  marked. 
Nations  and  men  appear  on  its  pages  abruptly,  rending  the  curtain  of 
oblivion,  and  striding  to  the  front  of  the  stage  for  a  moment,  and  then  they 
disappear,  swallowed  up  of  night.  It  has  no  care  to  tell  the  stories  of  any 
of  its  heroes,  except  for  so  long  as  they  were  the  organs  of  that  Divine 
breath,  which,  breathed  through  the  weakest  reed,  makes  music.  The 
self-revelation  of  God,  not  the  acts  andfortunesof  even  His  noblest  servants, 
is  the  theme  of  the  Book.  It  is  full  of  gaps  about  matters  that  any  sciolist 
or  philosopher  or  theologian  would  have  filled  up  for  it.  There  it  stands, 
a  Book  unique  in  the  world's  history,  unique  in  what  it  says,  and  no  less 
unique  in  what  it  does  not  say. 

Why  was  it  that  in  the  Church,  after  the  completion  of  the  Scriptural 
canon,  there  sprang  up  a  whole  host  of  apocryphal  gospels,  full  of  childish 
stories  of  events  which  they  felt  had  been  passed  over  with  strange  silence 
in  the  teachings  of  the  four  evangelists  ?  Put  the  four  gospels  down  by  the 
side  of  the  two  thick  octavo  volumes  which  it  is  the  regulation  thing  to 
write  nowadays  about  any  man  that  has  a  name  at  all,  and  you  will  feel 
their  incompleteness  as  biographies.  They  are  but  a  pen-and-ink  drawing 
of  the  sun  !  And  yet,  although  they  be  so  tiny  that  you  might  sit  down  and 
read  them  all  in  an  evening  over  the  fire,  is  it  not  strange  that  they  have 
stamped  on  the  whole  world  an  image  so  deep  and  so  sharp,  of  such  a 
character  as  the  world  never  saw  besides  ?  They  are  fragments,  but  they 
have  left  a  symmetrical  and  a  unique  impression  on  the  consciousness  of  the 
whole  world. 

261 


THE  INCOMPLETENESS   OF  SCRIPTURE. 

There  are  also  many  other  things  which  Jesus  did,  the  which,  if  they 
should  be  written  every  one,  I  suppose  that  even  the  world  itself  would  not 
contain  the  books  that  should  be  written. — ^JOHN  xxi.  25. 

Se  tember  18  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  is  the  Centre  of  Scripture  ;  and 
the  Book — whatever  be  the  historical  facts  about  its  origin, 
its  authorship,  and  the  date  of  the  several  portions  of  which  it  is  composed 
— the  Book  is  a  unity,  because  there  is  driven  right  through  it,  like  a  core 
of  gold,  either  in  the  way  of  prophecy  and  onward-looking  anticipation,  or 
in  the  way  of  history  and  grateful  retrospect,  the  reference  to  the  one 
*'  Name  that  is  above  every  name,"  the  name  of  the  Christ,  the  Son  of 
God. 

"  They  that  went  before,  and  they  that  followed  after,  cried,  *  Hosanna  ! 
Blessed  be  He  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord.'"  That  Christ 
towers  up  above  the  history  of  the  world  and  the  process  of  revelation,  like 
Mount  Everest  among  the  Himalayas.  To  that  great  peak  all  the  country 
on  the  one  side  runs  upwards,  and  from  it  all  the  valleys  on  the  other 
descend  ;  and  the  springs  are  born  there  which  carry  verdure  and  life  over 
the  world. 

And  all  the  incompleteness  of  Scripture,  its  fragmentariness,  its  careless- 
ness about  persons,  are  intended,  as  are  the  slight  parts  in  a  skilful  painter's 
handiwork,  to  emphasise  the  beauty  and  the  sovereignty  of  that  one  central 
Figure  on  which  all  the  lights  are  concentrated,  and  on  which  he  has 
lavished  all  the  resources  of  his  art.  So  God — for  God  is  the  Author  of  the 
Bible — on  this  great  canvas  has  painted  much  in  sketching  outline,  and  left 
much  unfilled  in,  that  every  eye  may  be  fixed  on  the  central  Figure,  the 
Christ  of  God,  on  whose  head  comes  down  the  dove,  and  round  whom 
echoes  the  Divine  declaration  :  "This  is  My  beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am 
well  pleased." 

But  it  is  not  merely  in  order  to  represent  Jesus  as  the  Christ  of  God 
that  these  are  written,  but  it  is  that  that  representation  may  become  the 
object  of  our  faith.  If  the  intention  of  Scripture  had  been  simply  to 
establish  the  fact  that  Jesus  was  the  Christ  and  the  Son  of  God,  it  might 
have  been  done  in  a  very  different  fashion.  A  theological  treatise  would 
have  been  enough  to  do  that.  But,  if  the  object  be  that  men  should  not 
only  accept  with  their  understandings  the  truth  concerning  Christ's  office 
and  no.ture,  but  that  their  hearts  should  go  out  to  Him,  and  that  they  should 
rest  their  sinful  souls  upon  Him  ar  the  Son  of  God  and  the  Christ,  then 
there  is  no  other  way  to  accomplish  that  but  by  the  history  of  His  life  and 
the  manifestation  of  His  heart.  If  the  object  were  simply  to  make  us  know 
about  Christ,  we  do  not  need  a  Book  like  this  ;  but  if  the  object  is  to  lead 
us  to  put  our  faith  in  Him,  then  we  must  have  what  we  have  here,  the 
infinitely  touching  and  tender  figure  of  Jesus  Christ  Himself  set  forth 
before  us  in  all  its  sweetness  and  beauty,  as  He  lived  and  moved  and  died 
for  us. 

Do  you  believe  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God  ?  Do  you  trust 
your  soul  to  Him  in  these  characters?  If  you  do,  I  think  we  can  shake 
hands.  If  you  do  not.  Scripture  has  failed  to  do  its  work  on  you,  and  you 
have  not  reached  the  point  which  all  God's  lavish  revelation  has  been 
expended  on  the  world  that  you  and  all  men  might  attain. 

262 


THE   ULTIMATE   PURPOSE   OF  GOD'S  WORD. 

These  are  they  which  bear  ivitness  of  Me ;  and  ye  will  not  come  to  Me, 
that  ye  may  have  life. — ^JoHN  v.  39,  40. 

S  t  b  19  Scripture  is  not  given  to  us  merely  to  make  us  know 
something  about  God  in  Christ,  nor  only  in  order  that  we 
may  have  faith  in  the  Christ  thus  revealed  to  us,  but  for  a  further  end — ■ 
great,  glorious,  but,  blessed  be  His  Name  !  not  distant — namely,  that  we 
may  "have  life  in  His  Name."  "Life"  is  deep,  mystical,  inexplicable 
by  any  other  words  than  itself.  It  includes  pardon,  holiness,  well-being, 
immortality.  Heaven  ;  but  it  is  more  than  they  all. 

This  life  comes  into  our  dead  hearts,  and  quickens  them  by  union  with 
God.  That  which  is  joined  to  God  lives.  Union  with  Christ  in  His 
Sonship  will  bring  life  into  dead  hearts.  He  is  the  true  Prometheus  that 
has  come  from  Heaven  with  fire,  the  fire  of  the  Divine  Life  in  the  reed 
of  His  humanity  ;  and  Pie  imparts  it  to  us  all  if  we  will.  He  lays  Himself 
upon  us,  as  the  prophet  laid  himself  on  the  little  child  in  the  upper  chamber ; 
and  lip  to  lip,  and  beating  heart  to  dead  heart.  He  touches  our  death,  and  it 
is  quickened  into  life.  And  the  condition  on  which  that  great  Name  will 
bring  to  us  life  is  simply  our  faith.  If  you  trust  Him  as  the  Son  of  God 
who  comes  down  to  earth  that  we  in  Him  might  have  the  immortal  life 
He  is  ready  to  give,  then  the  end  that  God  has  in  view  in  all  His  revelation, 
that  Christ  had  in  view  in  His  bitter  Passion,  has  been  accomplished  for 
you.  If  you  do  not,  it  has  not.  You  may  admire  Him,  you  may  think 
loftily  of  Him,  you  may  be  ready  to  call  Him  by  many  great  and 
appreciative  names,  but  oh  !  unless  you  have  learned  to  see  in  Him  the 
Divine  Saviour  of  your  souls,  you  have  not  seen  what  God  means  you  to 
see.  But  if  you  have,  then  all  other  questions  about  this  Book,  important 
as  they  are  in  their  places,  may  settle  themselves  as  they  will ;  you  have 
got  the  kernel,  the  thing  that  it  was  meant  to  bring  you.  Many  an 
erudite  scholar  that  has  studied  the  Bible  all  his  life  has  missed  the 
purpose  for  which  it  was  given  ;  and  many  a  poor  old  woman  in  her 
garret  has  found  it.  It  is  not  meant  to  be  wrangled  over,  it  is  not 
meant  to  be  read  as  an  interesting  product  of  the  rehgious  consciousness, 
it  is  not  to  be  admired  as  a  specimen  of  the  literature  of  a  nation  that  had 
a  genius  for  religion,  but  it  is  to  be  taken  as  being  God's  great  Word  to 
the  world,  t^e  record  of  the  revelation  that  He  has  given  us  in  His  Son. 
The  Eternal  Word  is  the  theme  of  all  the  written  Word.  Plave  you  made 
the  jewel  which  is  brought  us  in  that  casket  your  own  ?  Is  Jesus  to  you 
the  Son  of  the  living  God,  believing  on  whom  you  share  His  life,  and 
become  sons  of  God  by  Him  ?  Can  you  take  on  to  your  thankful  lips  that 
triumphant  and  rapturous  confession  of  the  doubling  Thomas — the  flag 
flying  on  the  completed  roof-tree  of  this  Gospel — "My  Lord  and  my 
God "  ?  If  you  can,  you  will  receive  the  blessing  which  Christ  then 
promised  to  all  of  us  standing  beyond  the  hmits  of  that  little  group,  "  who 
have  not  seen  and  yet  have  believed  " — even  that  eternal  life  which  flows 
into  our  dead  spirits  from  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  who  is  the  Light 
of  the  world  and  the  Life  of  men. 

263 


YOU    NEED   A   REFUGE. 

Look  on  tny  right  hand^  and  see  ;  for  there  is  no  man  that  knozveth  me : 
refuge  hath  failed  me  ;  no  man  caretk  for  my  soul,  — PsALM  cxlii.  4, 

There  is  nothing  sadder  than  the  strange  power  which 
ep  em  er  .  ^^^^^  have  of  blinking  the  great  facts  of  their  own  condition 
and  of  human  life.  I  know  few  things  that  seem  to  me  more  tragic,  and 
certainly  none  that  are  more  contemptible,  than  the  easy-going,  superficial 
optimism,  or  the  easy-going,  superficial  negligence,  with  which  hosts  of  people 
altogether  slur  over,  even  if  they  do  not  deny,  the  plain  fact  that  every  man 
and  woman  of  us  stands  here  in  this  world,  though  compassed  by  many 
blessings,  and  in  the  enjoyment  of  much  good,  and  having  many  delights 
flowing  into  our  lives,  and  being  warranted  in  laughter  and  mirth,  still 
stands  like  an  unsheltered  fugitive  in  the  open,  with  a  ring  of  enemies 
round  about  that  may  close  in  upon  him.  Self-interest  seems  often  to 
be  blind,  and  in  many,  I  am  sure,  it  is  blind  to  the  plainest  and 
largest  truths  with  reference  to  themselves,  I  heir  necessities,  and  their 
conditions.  Ah,  dear  friend  !  after  all  that  we  say  about  the  beauty 
and  the  brightness  and  the  joyfulness  of  life  and  the  beneficence  of 
God,  we  live  in  a  very  stern  world.  There  are  evils  that  may  come, 
and  there  are  some  that  certainly  will  come.  Young  people — thank 
God  for  it,  but  do  not  abuse  it — are  buoyant  in  hope,  and  take  short 
views,  and  are  glad,  where  older  folk,  that  have  learnt  what  life  is 
generally,  have  sober  estimates  of  its  possibilities,  and  our  radiant 
visions  have  toned  down  into  a  very  subdued  grey.  Sorrow,  disappoint- 
ments, broken  hopes,  hopes  fulfilled  and  disappointed — and  that  is 
worst  of  all — losses,  inevitable  partings  when  the  giant  shrouded  figure 
of  Death  forces  its  way  in  at  the  rose-covered  portal  in  spite  of  the  puny 
efforts  of  Love  to  keep  it  out,  sicknesses,  failures  in  business,  griefs  of 
many  kinds  that  I  cannot  touch — the  slings  and  arrows  of  outrageous 
fortune,  and  all  the  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to,— these  lie  waiting  somewhere 
on  the  road  for  every  one  of  us.  Are  )'ou  going  to  stand  in  the  unsheltered 
plain,  a  mark  for  all  these  ?  Do  you  think  you  can  front  them  in  your 
own  strength  ?  Are  you  able,  calmly  and  soberly,  remembering  the  possi- 
bilities that  lie  in  the  black  clouds  over  your  head,  to  say,  '*  Pour  on  !  I 
will  endure  ?  "     Nay  !  verily  ;  you  need  a  refuge. 

You  carry  your  own  worst  danger  buttoned  up  in  your  own  waistcoats 
and  gowns  ;  you  bear  about  with  you  in  your  hearts,  in  your  passions,  in 
your  desires,  a  vase  of  combustibles  amidst  the  sparks  of  a  volcano,  so  to 
speak.  And  any  one  of  these  that  fill  the  air  may  drop  into  it,  and  bring 
about  a  conflagration.  No  man  that  has  measured  himself,  the  irritability 
of  his  nerves,  the  excitability  of  his  passions,  the  weakness  of  his  will,  and 
its  ugly  trick  of  goii  g  over  to  the  enemy  at  the  very  critical  moment  of  the 
fight,  but,  if  he  is  a  wise  man,  will  say,  "I  need  something  stronger  than 
myself  to  fall  back  upon,  I  need  some  damp  cloth  or  other  to  be  laid  over 
the  magazine  of  combustibles  in  my  heart :  I  need  a  refuge  from  myself." 

264 


THE  VOICE   OF  CONSCIENCE. 

/  remember  God,  and  am  disquieted :  I  coinplain,  and  my  spirit  is 
overwhelmed. — PsALM  Ixxvii.  3. 

You  carry — no  matter  whence   it  came,   or  how  it  was 
^^   ^  '     developed  ;  that  is  of  no  consequence,  you  have  got  it — 

you  carry  a  conscience,  that  is  not  altogether  silent  in  any  man,  I  suppose, 
and  that  certainly  is  not  altogether  dead  in  you.  Its  awful  voice  speaks 
many  a  time  in  the  silence  of  the  night,  and  in  the  depths  of  your  own 
heart,  and  tells  you  that  there  are  evil  things  in  your  past  and  a  page  black 
in  your  biography  which  you  can  do  nothing  to  cancel  or  to  erase  the  stains 
frum  or  to  tear  out.  "  What  I  have  v/ritten  I  have  written."  And  so 
long  as  memory  holds  her  place,  and  conscience  is  not  shattered  altogether, 
there  needs  no  other  hell  to  make  the  punishment  of  the  evil-doer.  You 
need  a  refuge  from  the  stings  of  the  true  indictments  of  your  own  con- 
sciences. 

Your  conscience  is  a  prophet.  It  is  not,  nowadays,  fashionable  to 
preach  about  the  Day  of  Judgment — more's  the  pity,  I  think.  We  say 
that  every  one  of  us  shall  give  an  account  of  ourselves  to  God.  Have  you 
ever  tried  to  believe  that  about  yourself,  and  to  realise  what  it  means? 
Think  that  all,  down  to  the  oozy  depths  that  we  are  ashamed  to  look  at 
ourselves,  shall  be  spread  out  before  the  "  pure  eyes  and  perfect  judgment 
of  the  all-judging"  God.  Oh  !  brother,  you  will  need  a  refuge,  "  that  you 
may  have  boldness  before  Him  in  the  Day  of  Judgment."  These  things 
that  I  have  been  speaking  about,  external  ills,  ungoverned  self,  the  accusa- 
tions of  conscience,  which  is  the  voice  of  God,  and  that  future  to  which 
we  are  all  driving  as  fast  as  we  can — these  things  are  trtiths ;  and,  being 
truths,  they  should  enter  in,  as  operative  facts,  into  your  lives.  My 
question  is.  Have  they  done  so  ? 

You  need  a  refuge  ;  have  you  ever  calmly  contemplated  the  necessity  ? 
Oh  !  do  not  let  that  dogged  ignorance  of  the  facts  bewitch  you  any  longer. 
Do  not  let  the  inconsequent  levity  that  cannot  see  an  inch  beyond  its  nose 
hide  from  you  the  realities  of  our  own  condition.  People  in  the  prisons, 
during  the  September  massacres  of  the  French  Revolution,  used  to  amuse 
themselves,  although  the  tumbrils  were  coming  for  some  of  them  to-morrow 
morning,  and  the  headsman  was  waiting  for  them — used  to  amuse  them- 
selves as  if  they  were  free,  and  got  up  entertainments  with  a  ghastly 
mockery  of  joy.  That  is  something  like  what  some  of  us  do.  One  has 
seen  a  mule  going  down  an  Alpine  pass,  ambling  quite  comfortably  along, 
with  one  foot  over  a  precipice,  and  a  thousand  feet  to  fall  if  it  slips.  That 
is  how  some  of  us  travel  along  the  road.  Sheep  will  nibble  the  grass, 
stretching  their  stupid  necks  a  little  bit  further  to  get  an  especially  succulent 
tuft  on  the  edge  of  the  cliffs,  with  eight  hundred  feet  and  a  crawling  sea 
at  the  bottom  of  it  to  receive  them  if  they  stumble.  Do  not  be  like  that. 
"  Be  ye  not  as  the  horses  or  the  mules  that  have  no  understanding,"  but 
look  the  facts  in  the  face,  and  do  not  be  content  till  you  have  acted  as  they 
prescribe. 

265 


THE  REFUGE  THAT  YOU  NEED. 

Thou  hast  been  a  Stronghold  to  the  poor,  a  Stronghold  to  the  needy  in 
his  distress,  a  Refuge  from,  the  storm,  a  Shadoiv  from  the  heat. — IsA.  xxv.  4. 

'^'^^  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  describes  the 
September  Z2.  cj-^^-isfj^n's  Refuge  as  "  the  hope  set  before  us."  Now  !  by 
"hope"  there,  he  obviously  means,  not  the  emotion,  but  the  Object  upon 
which  it  is  fixed.  For  it  is  something  "set  before"  him — that  is  to  say, 
external  to  him,  and  on  which,  when  it  is  set  before  him,  he  can  lay  an 
appropriating  hand,  so  that  by  the  hope  here  is  meant  the  thing  hoped  for. 
That,  of  course,  is  a  very  common  usage,  in  v/hich  we  transfer  the  name 
of  a  feeling  to  the  thing  that  excites  it.  So  here  it  is  the  thing  that 
Christians  have  laid  hold  of  which  is  called  "the  hope  set  before  us." 

That  thing  set  before  men  as  the  object  of  hope  is  the  great  and  faithful 
promise  of  God,  confirmed  by  His  oath  long  ago  to  the  ancient  patriarchs, 
the  promise  of  Divine  blessings  and  of  a  future  inheritance.  And,  says  the 
writer,  away  down  here,  in  the  very  latest  ages,  we  have  the  very  same 
solid  substance  to  grasp  and  cling  to  that  Abraham  of  old  had.  For  God 
said  to  him,  "  Blessing,  I  will  bless  thee,"  and  He  says  it  to  us  ;  and  that  is 
a  "Refuge."  God  said  to  him,  "Thou  shalt  have  a  land  for  an  inherit- 
ance," and  He  says  it  to  us  ;  and  that  is  a  Refuge.  The  presence  of  God, 
and  the  promise  of  a  blessed  inheritance,  are  the  elements  of  the  hope  of 
which  the  writer  is  speaking.  Then,  in  his  rapid  way,  he  crowds  figure 
upon  figure,  and,  not  content  with  two,  the  asylum  and  the  strong  stay, 
he  adds  a  third,  and  likens  this  hope  to  the  anchor  of  the  soul,  giving 
steadfastness  and  fixity  to  the  man  who  clings,  being  in  itself  "sure"  so 
that  it  will  not  break,  and  "steadfast"  so  that  it  will  not  drag.  He  goes 
on  to  say  that  this  object  of  hope  enters  "into  that  within  the  veil."  But 
notice  that  in  the  very  next  verse  he  speaks  of  some  one  else  that  entered 
within  the  veil — viz. ,  Jesus  Christ.  So,  as  in  a  dissolving  view,  you  have, 
first,  the  figure  of  Hope,  as  the  poets  have  painted  her,  calm  and  radiant  and 
smiling ;  and  then  that  form  melts  away,  and  there  stands  instead  of  the 
abstraction  Hope,  the  Person  Jesus  Christ.  Which,  being  translated  into 
plain  words,  is  just  this,  the  Refuge  is  Christ.  Jesus  Christ  is  our  Hope — 
and  Refuge,  because  He  is  our  Priest.  Ah,  dear  brother,  all  other 
enemies  and  ills  are  tolerable,  and  a  man  may  make  shift  to  bear  them  all 
without  God,  though  he  will  bear  them  very  imperfectly  ;  but  the  deepest 
need  of  all,  the  most  threatening  enemy  of  all,  can  only  be  dealt  with  and 
overcome  by  the  Gospel  which  proclaims  the  Priest  whose  death  is  the 
abolition  of  Death,  whose  sacrifice  is  the  removal  of  sin. 

How  utterly  different  all  the  inevitable  ills  and  sorrows  of  this  mortal 
life  become  when  we  lay  hold  on  Him,  and  find  shelter  there  !  "A  man 
shall  be  a  refuge  from  the  storm  and  a  covert  from  the  tempest,  as  rivers  of 
water  in  a  dry  place,  as  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock  in  a  weary  land. "  We 
can  bear  sickness  and  sorrows  and  disappointments  and  failures  and 
partings  and  all  griefs,  and  the  arrow-heads  are  blunted,  or,  at  all  events, 
the  poison  is  wiped  off  the  barbs  when  we  have  Christ  for  our  Refuge  and 
our  Friend. 

266 


FLEEING  AND   CLINGING. 

We  .  .  .  who  have  fled  for  refuge  to  lay  hold  of  the  hope  set  before 
us. — Heb.  vi. 

g  ^  ,  23  The  writer  blends  two  vivid  metaphors  here,  the  one  of  a 
fu;;;itive  unsheltered  in  the  open,  surrounded  by  foes  ;  the 
other  of  a  man  grasping  some  strong  stay.  Look  at  the  two  pictures. 
"  Fled  for  refuge."  The  scene  brought  before  us  is  that  of  a  man  flying 
for  his  life,  with  the  pursuer  clattering  at  his  heels,  and  his  lance-point 
within  a  yard  of  the  fugitive's  back.  Grass  will  not  grow  under  that  man's 
feet  ;  he  v/ill  not  stop  to  look  at  the  flower  by  the  road.  The  wealth  of 
South  Africa,  if  it  were  spread  before  him,  would  not  check  his  headlong 
flight.  It  is  a  race  for  life.  If  he  gets  to  the  open  gate  he  is  safe.  If  he 
is  overtaken  before  he  reaches  it,  he  is  a  dead  man.  The  moment  he  gets 
within  the  portal  the  majesty  of  law  compasses  him  about,  and  delivers 
him  from  the  wild  justice  of  revenge.  "  By-and-bye  "kills  its  tens  of 
thousands.  For  one  man  that  says,  "I  am  not  a  Christian,  and,  what  is 
more,  I  never  intend  to  be,"  there  are  a  dozen  that  say,  "  To-morrow  !  to- 
morrow !  "  "  Let  me  sow  my  wild  oats  as  a  young  man  ;  let  me  alone  for 
a  little  while.  I  am  busy  at  present ;  when  I  have  a  convenie;  :  season  I 
will  send  for  thee."  What  would  have  become  of  the  man-slayer  if  he  had 
curled  himself  up  in  his  cloak,  and  laid  down  beside  his  victim,  and  said, 
"  I  am  too  tired  to  run  for  it"  ?  He  would  have  been  dead  before  morn- 
ing. A  rabbi's  scholar,  as  the  Jewish  traditions  tell  us,  once  said  to  him, 
"Master!  when  shall  I  repent?"  "The  day  before  you  die,"  said  the 
Rabl)i.  The  scholar  said,  "  I  may  die  to-day."  Then  said  the  Rabbi, 
"Repent  to-day."  "Choose  you  this  day  "whether  you  will  stand  un- 
sheltered out  there,  exposed  to  the  pelting  hustling  of  the  pitiless  storm,  or 
will  flee  to  the  Refuge  and  be  saved. 

Look  at  the  other  picture  :  "to  lay  hold  of  the  hope."  Perhaps  the 
allusion  is  to  the  old  instiiution  of  Sanctuary,  which  perhaps  existed  in 
Israel,  and  at  any  rate  was  well  known  in  ancient  times.  When  a  man 
grasped  the  horns  of  the  altar  he  was  safe.  If  so,  the  two  metaphors  may 
really  blend  into  one  :  the  flight  first,  and  then  the  clutching  to  that  which, 
so  long  as  the  twining  fingers  could  encompass  it,  would  permit  no  foe  to 
strike  the  fugitive.  This  metaphor  speaks  of  the  fixity  of  the  hold  with 
which  we  should  grasp  Jesus  Christ  by  our  faith.  The  shipwrecked  sailor 
up  in  the  rigging,  with  the  wild  sea  around  him,  and  the  vessel  thumping 
upon  the  sand,  will  hold  on,  with  frozen  fingers,  for  hours,  to  the  shrouds, 
knowing  that  if  he  slips  his  grasp  the  next  hungry  wave  will  sweep  him 
away  and  devour  him.  And  so  you  should  cling  to  Jesus  Christ  with  the 
consciousness  of  danger  and  helplessness,  with  the  tight  grasp  of  despair, 
with  the  tight  grasp  of  certain  hope. 

I  remember  reading  of  an  inundation  in  India,  when  a  dam,  away  up  in 
a  mountain  gorge,  burst  at  midnight.  Mounted  messengers  were  sent  down 
the  glen  to  gallop  as  hard  as  they  could  and  rouse  the  sleeping  villagers. 
Those  who  rose  and  fled  in  an  instant  were  in  time  to  reach  the  high 
ground,  as  they  saw  the  tawny  flood  coming  swirling  down  the  gorge,  laden 
with  the  wrecks  of  happy  homes  and  many  a  corpse.  Those  who  hesitated 
and  dawdled  were  swept  away  by  it. 

267 


CHRIST'S  COMING  TO  THE  WORLD.— I. 

And  the  Spirit  and  the  bride  say,  Come.  And  he  that  heareth,  let  hitrt 
say.  Come. — Rev.  xxii.  17. 

c    *     V     r»i      The   two  halves  of  this   verse   do   not  refer  to  the  same 
oeptember  a,  ^i  ,,         .       .,       ,^        _  . 

persons  or  the  same  "  commg.        The  first  portion  as  an 

invocation  or  a  prayer  ;  the  second  portion  is  an  invitation  or  an  offer.     The 

one  is  addressed  to  Christ,  the  other  to  men.     The  commentary  upon  the 

former  is  the  last  words  of  the  Book,  where  we  find  the  seer  answering  the 

promise  of  his   Master:   "Behold!    I   come  quickly!"  with  the  sigh  of 

loiging  :  "Even  so!     Come!  Lord  Jesus."      And  in  precisely  a  similar 

fashion   the  bride   here,    longing  for   the    presence   of   the    bridegroom, 

answers  His  promise  :  "  Behold,  I  come  quickly  !"  which  occurs  a  verse  or 

two  before,  with  the  petition  which  all  who  hear  it  are  bidden  to  swell  till 

it  rolls  in  a  great  wave  of  supplication  to  His  feet. 

And  then  with  that  coming,  another  "  coming"  is  connected.  The  one 
is  the  coming  of  Christ  to  the  world  at  last ;  the  other  is  the  coming  of  men 
to  Christ  now.  The  double  office  of  the  Church  is  represented  here,  the 
voice  that  rose  in  petition  to  Heaven  has  to  sound  upon  earth  in  proclama- 
tion. And  the  double  relation  of  Christ  to  His  Church  is  implied  here. 
He  is  absent,  therefore  He  is  prayed  to  come  ;  but  He  is  in  such  a  fashion 
present  as  that  any  who  will  can  come  to  Him.  He  will  come  again  ;  but 
ere  He  does,  and  because  He  will,  men  are  invited  to  approach  Him  now, 
and  if  we  do,  to  our  hearts,  too.  His  appearing  will  be  a  joy  and  not  a 
terror.  And  the  sweetness  of  His  presence  with  us  amidst  the  shows  of 
time  will  be  perfected  by  the  glories  of  our  presence  with  Him  when  He 
comes  at  last. 

Christ  has  come,  Christ  will  come.  These  are  the  two  great  facts  from 
which,  as  from  two  golden  hooks,  the  whole  chain  of  human  history  hangs 
in  a  mighty  curve.  The  one  fills  all  the  past,  the  other  should  brighten  all 
the  future.  Memory  should  feed  upon  the  one,  hope  should  leap  up  to 
grasp  the  other.  And  so  closely  are  these  two  connected  as  that  the  former 
is  incomplete  and  ineffectual  without  the  latter.  He  has  come,  therefore 
He  will  come. 

And  that  coming  is  to  be  in  bodily  form,  even  as  the  angels  said  : 
"This  Jesus  shall  so  come  m  like  i?ianner  as  ye  have  seen  Him  go." 
What  was  the  likeness  ?  The  differences  are  enormous  :  He  came  in 
weakness  ;  He  will  come  in  power.  He  came  in  humiliation  ;  He  will  come 
in  glory.  He  came  to  redeem  ;  He  will  come  to  judge.  But  the  similarity 
is  this,  that  as  in  true  bodily  form  He  truly  entered  into  human  conditions, 
and  walked  amongst  men  upon  earth,  having  a  local  habitation  and  a  name 
amongst  us,  so  He  comes  again  in  no  metaphor,  in  no  ideal  lashion,  but  in 
simple  corporeal  reality,  once  more  manifest  and  visible  amongst  the 
children  of  earth. 

He  came  in  obscurity,  stealing  into  the  world  with  but  a  handful  of  poor 
shepherds  for  the  witnesses.  He  will  come,  "and  every  eye  shall  see 
Him."  He  will  come  in  a  body  no  less  truly  human,  no  less  really 
corporeal,  but  in  a  body  of  glory,  which  shall  fitly  manifest  and  ray  out  the 
indwelHng  of  Divinity.  And  lie  comes  for  judgment,  and  He  comes  to 
perfect  the  union  between  Himself  and  all  humble  hearts  that  love  Him 
and  trust  Him. 

268 


CHRIST'S   COMING  TO  THE  WORLD.~II. 

He  that  cometh  shall  come,  and  shall  not  tarry. — Heb.  x.  37. 

In  anticipation  of  that  ultimate  coming,  in  bodily  form, 
Septeml)er  25.  ^^^  ^j^^^  ^^  earth's  sorrows  and  the  consummation  of 
earth's  history,  there  are  many  comings  of  Christ  through  the  ages ;  and 
like  in  principle,  though  lesser  in  degree,  destructions  of  Jerusalem,  and 
falls  of  the  Roman  Empire  by  Gothic  invasions,  and  Reformations  of  the 
Popish  corrupt  Church,  and  French  Revolutions,  and  American  Wars  of 
Slavery,  and  many  another  secular  change  by  w^hich  the  old  order  changeth, 
yielding  place  to  new,  are  what  the  old  prophets  called  "  Days  of  the 
Lord,"  the  same  in  principle  as  that  last  great  day.  Christ  "comes," 
though  He  is  always  present  in  human  history — comes  to  our  apprehensions 
in  eras  of  rapid  change,  in  revolutionary  times  when  some  ancient  iniquity 
is  smitten  down,  and  some  new  fair  form  emerges  from  the  chaos.  The 
electricity  is  long  in  gathering  during  the  fervid  summer  heat,  in  the 
slow  moving  and  changing  clouds  ;  but  when  it  is  gathered,  there  comes 
the  flash.  The  snow  is  long  in  collecting  on  the  precipitous  face  of  the 
Alp  ;  but  when  the  weight  has  become  sufficient,  down  it  rushes,  the  white 
death  of  the  avalanche.  For  fifty-nine  (silent)  minutes  and  fifty-nine  (silent) 
seconds  the  hand  moves  round  the  dial,  and  at  the  sixtieth  it  strikes.  So, 
at  long  intervals  in  history  of  nations,  a  crash  comes,  and  men  say  : 
"  Behold  the  Lord  !  He  cometh  to  judge  the  world." 

Surely,  surely,  it  needs  no  words  to  enforce  the  thought  that  all  who 
love  Him  and  all  who  love  truth  and  righteousness,  which  are  His,  and  all 
who  desire  that  the  world's  sorroAvs  should  be  alleviated  and  the  world's 
evils  should  be  chastised  and  smitten,  must  lift  up  the  old,  old  cry :  "  Even 
so  !  Come  !  Lord  Jesus."  The  bride  must  long  for  the  coming  of  the 
bridegroom.  Burdened  hearts  that  writhe  and  are  afflicted  with  the  sorrows 
of  humanity,  and  hearts  that  plod  wearily  along  some  lonely  path  in 
darkness  and  in  pain — these  all  lift  up  their  cry  to  Him,  the  Avenger,  the 
Lover,  the  Judge,  the  Purifier,  that  He  would  come  with  that  rod  of  His 
mouth  which  slays  the  wicked,  and  that  fiery  indignation  which  burns  up 
only  the  evil  that  is  killing  mankind. 

The  earnest  belief  in,  and  the  longing  for  the  coming  of,  Jesus  Christ 
has  been  too  much  surrendered  to  one  school  of  interpreters  in  unfulfilled 
prophecy,  who  have  no  greater  claim  to  possess  it  than  the  rest  of  us.  It 
belongs,  or  ought  to  belong,  to  us  all.  All  the  signs  of  the  times,  intellectual 
and  social ;  the  rottenness  of  much  of  our  life  ;  the  abounding  luxury  ;  the 
hideous  vice  that  flaunts  unblamed  and  unabashed  before  us  all ;  the 
unsettlement  of  opinion  in  which  it  is  unbelief  that  seems  to  be  "  removing 
the  mountains  "  that  all  men  thought  stood  fast  and  firm  for  ever ; — all  these 
things  cry  out  to  Him  whose  ear  is  not  deaf  even  if  our  voice  does  not  join 
in  the  cry,  and  beseech  Him  to  come. 

Let  your  heart  be  so  near  to  Him,  your  soul  so  full  of  His  love  and 
the  longing  for  some  of  His  presence,  that  you,  too,  may  join  in  that 
universal  prayer  which  the  genius  of  the  great  Puritan  has  put  into  the 
music  of  these  words  :  "  Come  forth  out  of  Thy  royal  pavihon,  oh.  Thou 
Prince  of  all  the  kings  of  the  earth.  Put  on  the  visible  robes  of  Thine 
imperial  majesty ;  take  unto  Thee  the  unlimited  sceptre  which  Thy 
heavenly  Father  hath  bequeathed  Thee  ;  for  now  the  voice  of  Thy  Bride 
calls  Thee,  and  all  creatures  sigh  to  be  renewed." 

269 


THE   WONDERFUL   INVITATION. 

Jlnd  he  that  is  athirst,  let  him  come  :  he  that  will,  let  him  take  the  water 
of  life  freely. — Rev.  xxii.  17. 

St  be  26  ^^  these  words  there  are  echoes  of  precious  older  words, 
"Ho,  every  one  that  thirsteth,  come  ye  to  the  waters; 
and  he  that  hath  no  money,  come,  let  him  buy  .  .  .  yea,  come,  buy  wine 
and  milk  without  money  and  without  price."  And  again,  "  If  any  man 
thirst,  let  him  come  unto  Me,  and  drink."  On  both  of  these  more  ancient 
savings,  the  saying  of  the  evangelical  prophet  and  the  saying  of  our  Lord 
Himself,  these  great  words  seem  to  be  founded. 

What  is  it  to  come  ?  Christ  said,  standing  in  the  Temple  courts,  *'  If 
any  man  thirst,  let  him  come  unto  Me,  and  drink."  Christ  is  now  absent, 
but  still  His  bodily  presence  did  not  make  coming  to  Him  any  the 
easier  when  He  was  here.  Many  of  those  that  touched  His  garments,  and 
clasped  His  hands,  and  look-ed  into  His  eyes  were  an  infinite  distance 
from  Him. 

What  is  it  to  come?  Listen  to  His  own  explanation:  *'He  that 
Cometh  unto  Me  shall  never  hunger,  and  he  that  believeth  in  Me  shall 
never  thirst."  Then  "coming"  and  "taking"  and  "  drinking"  are  all 
but  various  forms  of  representing  the  one  act  of  believing  in  Him.  We 
come  to  Him  when  we  trust  Kim.  We  are  separated  from  Him  by  all 
the  distance  between  earth  and  heaven,  corporeally.  He  is  near  every  one 
of  us  in  spirit,  and  He  is  ready  to  come  so  much  nearer  that  He  will  dwell 
in  our  hearts  and  break  down  all  ine  barriers  between  us,  if  we  will  only 
draw  near  to  Him.  My  friend,  let  no  vague  metaphor  blind  you  to  the 
simple  requirement  which  is  here.  To  "  come  to  Christ"  is  nothing  more 
than  to  trust  Him.  Lean  your  weight  upon  Him,  and  your  soul  leaps  over 
the  gulfs  in  which  stars  and  systems  move,  and  touches  the  Son  of  man 
at  the  right  hand  of  God.  Faith  has  a  long  arm  ;  it  can  grasp  "  the  High 
Priest  that  has  passed  through  the  heavens,"  and  is  exalted  far  above 
them  all.  To  come  to  Christ  is  only  as  a  sinful  man  laden  with  infirmities 
and  stooping  beneath  many  a  burden  of  sin  and  sorrow  and  sore  weakness ; 
to  lean  my  sinful  self  upon  Flim,  and  so  to  be  joined  to  the  Lord.  To 
come  to  Christ  is  faith. 

Who  is  it  that  are  asked  to  come?  "  He  that  thirsteth"  and  "he  that 
willeth."  The  one  phrase  expresses  the  universal  condition,  the  other 
only  the  limitation  necessary  in  the  very  nature  of  things.  "  He  that 
thirsteth."  Who  does  not?  The  desires  of  every  soul  are  deep  and 
ravenous  and  fierce.  Your  heart  is  parched  for  love  ;  your  mind,  whether 
you  know  it  or  not,  is  restless  and  athirst  for  truth  that  you  can  cleave  to 
in  all  circumstances.  Your  will  longs  for  a  loving  authority  tliat  shall 
subdue  and  tame  it.  Your  conscience  is  calling  out  for  cleansing,  for 
pacifying,  for  purity.  Your  whole  being  is  one  great  want  and  emptiness. 
"  My  soul  thirsteth  for  God,  for  the  living  God"  ;  it  is  only  He  that  can 
slake  the  thirst,  that  can  satisfy  the  hunger.  You  have  tried  other  things, 
plenty  of  them  ;  and  has  not  your  experience  been  that  all  other  sources 
of  satisfaction  or  delight  have  done  for  you  what  the  sea-water  docs  to  the 
half-mad  shipwrecked  sailor  that  will  drink  it?  They  make  men  thirstier 
and  drive  them  madder.  Every  man  may  come  ;  for  we  are  all  perishing 
by  the  side  of  muddy  and  waterless  springs,  from  which  we  have  madly 
sougiit  to  slake  an  immortal  thirst. 

270 


'♦WHOSOEVER  WILL." 

Ho,  every  one  that  thtrsfethy  come  ve  to  the  waters,  and  he  that  hath  nc 
money ;  ccnie ye.  buy,  and  eat;  yea,  come,  buy  wine  and  milk  without  money 
and  witJiout price. — IsA.  Iv.  I. 

c.  X  ,.  ow  "Whosoever  will."  A  wish  is  enough,  but  a  wish  is 
indispensable.  How  strange,  and  yet  how  common,  it  is 
that  the  thirsty  man  is  not  the  willing  man  !  There  are  people  miser- 
able for  want  of  Christ,  and  half  believing  that  that  is  what  maiccs  them 
miserable,  and  who  yet  have  not  the  will  to  take  Him  for  their  own. 
There  is  no  barrier  but  the  barrier  that  you  yourself  build  in  an  averted 
will  or  in  indifference. 

These  two  words  gather  the  whole  of  humanity,  and  beneath  their  ample 
folds  every  one  of  us  may  shelter  him  or  herself.  "  Let  him  that  is  athirst 
come."  Lord  !  my  lips  are  cracking  and  black  with  the  parched  misery. 
*' Whosoever  will."  My  friend,  do  you  say,  "  Whosoever  will  not,  /  will, 
and  do,  now." 

Further,  what  is  offered  ?  *'  The  water  of  life."  Something  that  shall 
satisfy  all  the  immortal  thirst  of  the  soul.  And  what  is  that  ?  Not  a  thing, 
but  a  Person.  The  water  of  life,  in  its  deepest  interpretation,  is  Christ 
Himself;  even  as  He  said,  "  If  any  man  thirst,  let  him  come  to  Mt,  and 
drink."  And  if  only  you  will  go  and  trust  yourself  to  Him,  His  Spirit 
shall  pass  into  your  spirit,  and  with  the  communication  of  His  Spirit  there 
will  be  given  an  inward  fountain  that  will  spring  up  into  life  everlasting. 
It  were  a  poor  thing  if  the  offer  that  Christ  makes  were  only  of  some 
external  gift  that  should  satisfy  our  aspirations  and  still  our  desires.  What 
He  promises  and  gives  is  an  inward  spring  that  shall  well  up  within  us, 
and  shall  go  with  us  whithersoever  we  go.  "  He  that  believeth  on  Me, 
out  of  him  shall  flow  rivers  of  living  water."  This  spake  "  He  of  the 
Spirit."  The  promise  to  us  all  is  of  the  gift  of  His  own  precious  Self,  to 
dwell  in  our  hearts ;  to  make  us  blessed,  peaceful,  calm  ;  to  fill  our  desires, 
to  gladden  our  whole  nature,  to  dominate  our  wills,  to  cleanse  our  con- 
sciences, to  inform  our  understandings,  and  flood  our  hearts  with  the 
peaceful  deluge  of  His  own  love  and  perfect  life.  "  If  any  man  thirst,  let 
him  come  to  Me,  and  drink." 

And  what  are  the  conditions?  "Let  him  take  the  water  of  life  for 
nothing,"  as  the  word  might  have  been  rendered,  "  For  nothing."  He 
says  to  us,  "I  will  not  sell  it  to  you,  I  will  give  it  to  you."  And  too 
many  of  us  say  to  Him,  "  We  had  rather  buy  it,  or  at  any  rate  pay  some- 
thing towards  it."  No  effort,  no  righteousness,  no  sacrifice,  no  anything 
is  wanted:  "Without  money  and  without  price."  You  have  only  got 
to  give  up  yourself.  "  Sell  all  that  thou  hast."  Self  is  "  all  that  thou 
hast."  Sell.  Part  with  it.  Buy  !  by  the  surrender  of  all  confidence  in 
anything  that  you  can  do  or  are.  Come,  not  too  proud  to  owe  your  salva- 
tion wholly  to  undeserved,  unpurchased  mercy. 

Nothing  in  Tn3f  hand  I  bring. 
Simply  to  Thy  cross  I  cling. 

Take  the  water  of  life  "  freely." 

■211 


CHRIST'S   COMING  AND  MEN'S   COMING. 

/  came  that  they  may  have  life,  and  may  have  it  abundantly, --» 
John  x.  io. 

If  any  man  thirst,  let  him  come  unto  Me,  and  drink. — John  vii.  37. 

There  is  a  twofold  connection  between  the  two  comings 
that  I  would  point  out  to  you,  and  leave  to  your  thoughts. 
Christ  does  not  yet  come  in  order  that  men  may  come  to  Him.  There 
are  many  reasons  beyond  our  reach  and  ken  v/hy  for  so  long  a  time  the 
Lord  of  the  servants  is  absent  from  His  household  :  but  amongst  these 
reasons  certainly  not  the  least  is,  that  all  the  world  may  hear  that  great 
pleading  voice  of  invitation,  and  may  come  to  Him,  their  Saviour  and  their 
Judge.  Even  as  He  Himself  said,  in  words  the  whole  sweep  and  meaning 
of  which  we  do  not  yet  understand,  "This  Gospel  of  the  kingdom  must 
first  be  preached  in  all  nations  ;  and  then  shall  the  end  come."  So  that  He 
delays  His  drawing  near,  in  His  long-suffering  mercy  and  tender  pity,  in 
order  that  over  all  the  earth  the  glad  news  may  flash,  and  to  every  spirit 
the  invitation  may  come.  Christ  tarries  that  you  may  hear,  and  repent, 
and  come  to  Him.  That  is  the  first  phase  of  the  connection  between  these 
two  things. 

The  other  is — because  Christ  will  come  to  the  world,  therefore  let  us 
come  to  Him  now.  Joyful  as  the  spring  after  the  winter,  and  as  the  sun- 
shine after  the  darkness,  so  that  coming  of  His  ought  to  be  to  all ;  and 
though  it  be  the  object  or  desire  to  all  hearts  that  love  Him,  and  the  healing 
for  the  miseries  and  sorrows  of  the  world,  do  not  forget  it  has  a  very  solemn 
and  a  very  terrible  side.  He  comes,  when  He  does  come,  to  judge  you  and 
me  and  the  rest  of  our  brethren.  He  comes,  not  as  of  old,  in  lowliness,  to 
heal  and  to  succour  and  to  save,  but  He  comes  to  heal  and  to  succour  and 
to  save  all  them  that  love  His  appearing,  and  them  only,  and  He  comes  to 
judge  all  men  v.hether  they  love  His  appearing  or  no.  "  Every  eye  shall 
see  Him."  *'  To  what  purpose,"  said  one  of  the  old  prophets,  "  is  the  day 
of  the  Lord  unto  you?  The  day  of  the  Lord  is  darkness  and  not  light.'* 
Let  that  certain  coming  of  the  Lord  be  to  you  what  .t  ought  to  be — a  mighty 
motive  for  your  coming  to  Him.  Make  your  choice  whether  your  heart 
shall  leap  up  with  gladness  when  the  joyful  cry  is  heard:  "Behold!  the 
Bridegrom  cometh  "  ;  or  whether  you  will  call  upon  the  rocks  and  the  hills 
to  fall  upon  you  and  cover  you  from  His  face.  Come  to  Him  now,  trust 
Him,  "  take  the  water  of  life  freely,"  and  thus  "  ye  shall  have  a  song  as  in 
the  night,  when  a  holy  solemnity  is  kept,"  and  boldness  of  heart,  and  not 
be  ashamed  before  Him  at  His  coming. 

272 


THE  SOUL  LONGING  FOR  GOD. 

O  God,  Thou  art  my  God  ;  early  will  I  seek  Thee  :  my  soul  thirsteth  for 
Thee,  my  flesh  longeih  for  Thee  in  a  dry  and  weary  land^  where  no  water 
is, — Psalm  Ixiii.  I. 

St  be  "9  In  that  arid  tract  which  stretches  along  the- western  shore 
'  '  of  the  Dead  Sea,  and  thence  northward,  David  was  twice 
during  his  adventurous  life  :  once  during  the  Sauline  persecution,  once 
during  Absalom's  revolt.  It  cannot  be  the  former  of  these  which  is  referred 
to  here,  because  the  Psalmist  was  not  then  a  king  ;  it  must  therefore  be  the 
latter. 

That  was  the  darkest  hour  of  his  life.  His  favourite  and  good-for- 
nothing  son  was  seeking  to  grasp  his  sceptre  ;  his  familiar  friends  in  whom 
he  trusted  had  lifted  up  the  heel  against  him.  He  knew  that  his  own  sin 
had  come  back  to  roost  with  him  ;  and  so,  with  bleeding  heart,  with 
agonised  conscience,  with  crushed  spirit,  he  bowed  himself,  and  meekly 
and  penitently  accepted  the  chastisement.  Therefore  it  was  sweetened  to 
him  ;  and  this  psalm,  with  its  passion  of  love  and  mystic  rapture,  is  a 
monument  for  us  of  how  his  sorrows  had  brought  him  a  closer  union  with 
God,  as  our  sorrows  may  do  for  us ;  like  some  treasure  washed  to  our  feet  by 
a  stormy  sea. 

This  longing  is  not  that  of  a  man  who  has  no  possession  ;  rather  is  it  the 
desire  of  a  heart  which  is  already  in  union  for  a  closer  union  ;  rather  is  it  the 
tightening  of  the  grasp  with  which  the  man  already  holds  his  leather  in  Heaven. 
All  begins  with  the  utterance  of  a  personal  appropriating  faith.  "  O  God, 
Thou  art  my  God  !  "  That  is  the  beginning  of  all  personal  religion — when 
I  am  conscious  of  a  personal  relation  with  God  ;  when  I  feel  that  He  and  I 
possess  each  other  by  a  mutual  love  ;  when  I  put  out  my  hand,  and  humbly, 
but  confidently,  claim  my  individual  portion  in  the  world-wide  power  and 
love.  A  Christian  is  he  who  says,  "  He  loved  nie,  and  gave  Plimself  for  w^." 
We  must  individualise,  and  appropriate  as  our  very  own,  the  promises  and 
the  grace  that  belong  to  the  whole  world      *'  O  God,  Thou  art  my  God  ?" 

Notice  the  picturesque,  poetic  beauty  of  taking  his  surroundings  as  the 
emblem  of  his  feelings.  Nature  seems  to  reflect  his  mood.  He  looks  out 
on  the  stony,  monotonous,  burnt-up,  barren  country  about  him  ;  at  the 
cracks  in  the  soil  gaping  for  the  rain  wlucli  comes  not  ;  and  he  sees  the 
emblem  of  a  heart  yearning  after  God  and  not  possessing  Him.  He  and 
his  men  have  been  toiling,  v/earied,  across  the  "  burning  marl,"  looking  in 
all  the  torrent-beds  for  some  drop  of  water  to  cool  their  parched  throats, 
and  finding  none.  And  that  seems  to  him  like  the  search  of  a  soul  after  a 
far-off  God  :  "  My  soul  thirsteth  for  Thee  ...  in  a  dry  and  thirsty  land, 
where  no  water  is." 

Notice,  also,  the  intensity  of  the  desire.  Think  of  the  picture  that  rises 
from  these  graphic  v/ords.  Here  is  the  caravan  toiling  through  the  desert : 
men's  lips  black  with  thirst ;  their  parched  tongues  lolling  from  their 
mouths  ;  a  film  comes  over  their  glazing  eyes,  tlieir  steps  totter,  their  heads 
throb,  and  far  away  yonder  there  is  a  stunted  tree  which  tells  of  water  near 
it.  How  they  plunge  their  lips  into  the  black  mud  when  they  come  to  it, 
and  with  what  a  fierce  passion  tliey  satisfy  their  cravings  ! 

Can  anybody  say  that  this  is  an  honest  description  of  the  ordinary 
experience  of  ordinary  Christians  ?  Is  that,  or  anything  like  it,  true  about 
you  ?     What  sort  of  Christians  are  we  if  it  is  not  ? 

273  T 


THE   HABITUAL  DESIRE   OF  THE   SOUL. 

So  have  I  looked  upon  Thee  in  the  sanctuary,  to  see  Thy  power  and  Thy 
glory. — Psalm  Ixiii.  2. 

September  30  WHEN  was  it  that  David  thus  longed  for  God  ?  In  the 
midst  of  his  sorrow.  Even  then  the  thing  that  he  wanted 
most  was  not  restoration  to  Jerusalem,  or  the  defeat  of  his  enemies,  but 
union  with  God.  Oh  !  that  is  a  test  of  faith,  one  which  very  little  of  our 
faith  could  stand,  that  even  when  we  are  ringed  about  by  calamities  that 
seem  to  crush  us,  what  we  long  for  most  is  not  the  removal  of  the  sorrow, 
but  the  presence  of  our  Father.  Good  men  are  driven  to  God  by  the  stress 
of  tempests,  and  ordinary  and  bad  men  are  generally  driven  away  from 
Him.  What  does  your  sorrow  do  for  you,  friend  ?  Does  it  make  you 
writhe  in  impatience  ?  does  it  make  you  murmur  sullenly  against  His  im- 
position of  it  ?  or  does  it  make  you  feel  that  now  in  the  stress  and  agony 
there  is  nothing  that  you  can  grasp  and  hold  to  but  Him,  and  Him  alone  ? 
And  so  in  the  hour  of  darkness  and  need  is  my  prayer,  in  its  deepest  mean- 
ing, not,  '*  Take  away  Thy  heavy  hand  from  me,"  but,  '*  Give  me  more  of 
Thyself,  that  Thy  hand  may  thereby  be  lightened  ?  " 

I  notice  that  this  longing,  though  it  be  struck  out  by  sorrow,  is  not 
forced  upon  him  for  the  first  time  by  sorrow.  The  second  verse  of  the 
psalm  might  be  more  accurately  rendered  :  "So  have  I  gazed  upon  Thee 
in  the  sanctuary,  to  see  Thy  power  and  Thy  glory."  That  is  to  say,  as  in 
the  sorrows  and  in  the  wilderness  he  is  conscious  of  this  desire  after  God, 
so  amidst  the  sanctities  of  the  Tabernacle  and  the  joyful  services  and 
sacrifices  of  its  ritual  worship,  does  he  remember  that  he  looked  through 
the  forms  to  Him  that  shone  in  them,  and  in  them  beheld  His  power  and 
His  glory.  So  the  longing  that  springs  in  his  heart  is  an  old  longing.  He 
remembers  that  his  days  of  sorrow  are  not  the  first  days  in  which  He  has 
been  driven  to  say,  "Come  Thou  and  help  me."  He  can  remember  glad, 
peaceful  moments  of  communion,  and  these  are  homogeneous  and  of  a 
piece  with  his  religious  contemplations  in  his  hours  of  sorrow. 

Ah  !  that  life  is  but  a  poor,  fragmentary  one  which  seeks  God  by  fits 
and  starts  ;  and  that  seeking  after  God  is  but  a  half-hearted  and  partial  one 
which  is  only  experienced  in  the  moments  of  pain  and  grief.  It  is  well  to 
cry  for  Him  in  the  wilderness,  but  it  is  not  well  that  it  should  only  be  in  the 
wilderness  in  which  v/e  cry  for  Him.  It  is  well  when  darkness  and  disaster 
teach  us  our  need  of  Him  ;  but  is  not  well  when  we  require  the  darkness 
and  the  disaster  to  teach  us  our  need. 

And,  on  the  other  hand,  that  is  but  a  poor,  fragmentary  life,  and  that 
religion  is  but  a  very  incomplete  and  insincere  one,  which  is  more  pro- 
ductive of  raptures  in  the  sanctuary  than  of  seeking  after  God  in  the  wilder- 
ness. There  are  plenty  of  Christian  people  who  have  a  great  deal  more 
consciousness  of  God's  presence  in  the  idle  emotions  of  a  church  or  a 
chapel  than  in  the  strenuous  efforts  of  daily  life.  Both  things  separately  are 
maimed  and  miserable  ;  and  both  must  be  put  together — the  communion  in 
the  sanctuary  and  the  communion  in  the  wilderness,  seeking  after  Him  in 
the  sanctities  of  worship,  and  seeking  after  Him  in  the  prose  of  daily  life — 
if  ever  the  worship  of  the  sanctuary  or  the  prose  of  daily  life  are  to  be 
brightened  with  His  presence. 

274 


THE   LONGING  SOUL  SATISFIED. 

For  Thy  loving-kindness  is  better  than  life ;  my  lips  shall  praise  Thee, 
So  will  I  bless  Thee  while  I  live  :  I  will  lift  up  my  hands  in  Thy  Name.  My 
soul  shall  be  satisfied  as  with  marrow  and  fatness. — Psalm  Ixiii.  3-5. 

0  tob  1  Life  is  good  mainly  as  the  field  upon  which  God's  loving- 
kindness  may  be  manifested  and  grasped.  It  is  Hke  the 
white  sheet  on  which  the  beam  of  hght  is  thrown,  worth  nothing  in 
itself,  worth  everything  as  the  medium  for  the  manifestation  of  that  lustrous 
light.  It  is  like  a  stained-glass  window,  only  a  poor  bit  of  glass  till 
the  sunshine  gleams  behind  it,  and  then  it  flashes  up  into  rubies  and  purples 
and  gold.  Life  is  best  when  through  life  there  filters  or  flashes  on  us  the 
brightness  of  the  loving-kindness  of  the  Lord. 

And  all  real  religion  includes  in  it  a  calm,  deliberate,  fixed  preference  of 
God  to  life  itself.  Does  your  religion  do  that  ?  Can  you  say,  *'  It  were 
wise  and  it  were  blessed  to  die,  to  get  more  of  God  into  my  soul "  ?  If  not, 
our  longing,  v/hich  is  the  very  language  of  the  Spirit  in  our  hearts,  has  to 
be  intensified  much  ere  it  reaches  its  fitting  height. 

And  then,  still  further,  this  longing  is  accompanied  with  a  firm  resolve 
of  continuance  :  "  Thus  will  I  bless  Thee  while  I  live."  *'Thus" — as  I 
am  doing  now  in  the  midst  of  my  longing — "  I  will  lift  up  my  hands  in  Thy 
name."     *'  My  soul  shall  be  satisfied  as  with  marrow  and  fatness." 

Notice  how  very  beautiful  that  immediate  turn  in  the  Psalmist's  feelings 
is.  The  fruition  of  God  is  contemporaneous  with  the  desire  after  God. 
The  one  moment,  *' my  soul  thirsteth";  the  next  moment,  "my  soul  is 
satisfied."  As  in  the  wilderness  when  the  rain  comes  down,  and  in  a  couple 
of  days  what  was  baked  earth  is  flowery  meadow,  and  all  the  torrent-beds 
where  the  white  stones  glistened  ghastly  in  the  heat  are  foaming  with 
rushing  water  and  fringed  with  budding  willows — so  in  the  instant  in  which 
a  heart  turns  with  true  desire  to  God,  in  that  instant  does  God  draw  near  to 
it.  The  Arctic  spring  comes  with  one  stride  ;  to-day  snow,  to-morrow 
flowers.  There  is  no  time  needed  to  work  this  telegraph  ;  while  we  speak 
He  hears  ;  before  we  call  He  answers.  We  have  to  wait  for  many  of  His 
gifts,  never  for  Himself.  We  have  to  wait  sometimes  when  by  our  own 
faults  we  postpone  the  coming  of  the  blessings  that  we  have  asked.  If  we 
are  thinking  more  about  Absalom  and  Ahithophel  than  about  God,  more 
about  our  sorrows  and  our  troubles  than  about  Himself;  if  we  are  busy 
with  other  things  ;  if  having  asked  we  do  not  look  up  and  expect  ;  if  we 
shut  the  doors  of  our  hearts  as  soon  as  our  prayer  is  offered,  or  languidly 
stroll  away  from  the  place  of  prayer  ere  the  blessing  has  fluttered  down 
upon  our  souls  ; — of  course  we  do  not  get  it.  But  God  is  always  waiting  to 
bestow  ;  and  all  that  we  need  to  do  is  to  open  the  sluices,  and  the  great 
ocean  flows  in,  or  as  much  of  it  as  our  hearts  can  hold.  *'  My  soul 
thirsteth  "  is  the  experience  of  the  one  moment,  and  ere  the  clock  has 
ticked  again  "my  soul  shall  be  satisfied." 

275 


THE  FULNESS  OF  GOD'S  SUPPLY. 

They  shall  be  abundantly  satisfied  with  the  fatness  of  Thy  house  ;    and 
Thou  shalt  make  them  drink  of  the  river  of  Thy  pleasures. — PsALM  xxxvi.  8. 

^  ,  2  The  soul  that  possesses  God  is  fed  full.  The  emblem 
here,  of  course,  is  of  a  joyful  feast,  possibly  of  a  sacrificial 
one  ;  but  the  fact  is  that  whoever  has  got  a  living  hold  of  God,  and  a  little 
bit  of  God  lovingly  embedded  in  his  heart,  has  got  as  much  as  he  wants  ; 
that  between  God  and  him  there  is  such  a  correspondence  as  that  He  is  the 
absolute  and  all-sulficient  good.  If  I  may  so  say,  every  hollow  in  my 
nature  answers  to  a  protuberance  in  His  ;  and  when  you  put  the  two 
together,  the  little  heart  is  filled  by  the  great  heart  that  has  come  to  it.  We 
are  at  rest  when  we  have  God,  and  to  long  for  Him  is  to  insure  the 
possession  of  an  absolute  and  all-sufficient  good. 

The  satisfied  soul  breaks  into  the  music  of  praise.  "  My  mouth  shall 
praise  Thee  with  joyful  lips  when  I  remember  Thee  upon  my  bed,  and 
meditate  on  Thee  in  the  night-watches."  There  is  a  reference,  no  doubt, 
there,  to  the  little  camp  in  the  wilderness,  where  David  and  his  men, 
unguarded  save  by  God,  laid  themselves  dov/n  to  sleep  beneath  the  Syrian 
sky  with  all  its  stars,  and  where  the  leader,  no  doubt,  often  awoke  in  the 
night,  with  pricked-up  ears  listening  for  the  sound  of  the  approaching 
enemy.  And  even  then  into  his  heart  there  steals  the  thought  of  his  great 
Protector  ;  and  as  he  says  in  another  of  the  Psalms  dating  from  this  period, 
**  I  will  lay  me  down  in  peace  and  sleep,  because  Thou  makest  me  to  dwell, 
though  solitary,  in  safety."  The  heart  that  feeds  upon  God  is  secure,  and 
breaks  into  songs  in  the  night,  and  music  of  praise.  That  feast  has  always 
minstrels  at  it.  I'he  spontaneous  utterance  of  a  heart  feeding  on  God  is 
thankfulness  and  music  of  praise,  which  is  as  natural  as  smiles  when  we 
are  glad,  or  as  tears  when  we  mourn. 

And  then,  this  satisfaction  leads  on  to  an  absolute  security.  **  Because 
Thou  hast  been  my  help,  therefore  in  the  shadow  of  Thy  wings  will  I 
rejoice."  Such  a  past  and  such  a  present  can  only  have  one  kind  of  future 
as  their  consequence — a  future  in  which  the  seeking  soul  nestling  itself 
beneath  the  great  wings  outstretched  shall  crowd  close  to  the  father's 
heart,  and  be  guarded  by  His  love.  If  we  hold  fellowship  with  Plim,  He 
protects  us.  As  another  psalm  says,  using  a  similar  metaphor  :  "  Pie  that 
dwellcth  in  the  secret  place  of  the  Most  Pligh  shall  abide  under  the 
shadow  of  the  Almighty."  Communion  with  God  means  protection 
by  God. 

The  part  of  the  seeking  soul  is  the  certain  pledge  of  its  future.  The 
uncertainties  of  the  dim  to-morrow,  in  so  far  as  earth  is  concerned,  are  so 
many  that  we  can  never  say,  "To-morrow  shall  be  as  this  day."  And  in 
regard  of  all  other  sources  of  blessing,  the  dearest  and  the  purest,  wc  Jiave 
all  to  feel,  with  sinking,  sickening  hearts,  that  the  longer  we  have  had 
them  the  nearer  comes  the  day  of  their  certain  loss.  But  about  Him  we 
can  say,  "Because  Thou  hast  been  my  Helper,  therefore  in  the  shadow  of 
Thy  wings  will  I  rejoice."  And  in  union  with  Him  we  can  look  out  over 
all  the  dim  sea  that  stretches  before  us  ;  and  though  we  know  not  what 
storms  may  vex  its  surface,  or  whither  its  currents  may  carry  us,  we  can  aiy, 
"  Thou  wilt  be  with  Me,  and  in  Thee  I  shall  have  peace." 

276 


THE  SATISFIED  SOUL  STILL  SEEKING. 

My  soul  followeth  hard  after  Thee  :    Thy  right  hand  upholdeth  me. — 
Psalm  Ixiii.  8. 

The  word  translated  yb//ozc;?/A  here  literally  means  to  cleave, 
or  to  ding.  And  there  is  a  beautiful  double  idea  of  a 
tv.-ofold  relationship  expressed  in  that  somewhat  incongruous  form  of 
speech  "cleave  after  Thee,"  the  former  word  giving  the  idea  of  union  and 
possession,  the  latter  suggesting  the  other  idea  of  search  and  pursuit :  so 
that  the  two  main  currents  of  thought  in  the  psalm  are  repeated  in  that 
little  phrase  ;  and  we  are  back  again — though  with  a  wonderful  difference — 
to  the  ground-tone  of  the  first  section.  There  the  soul  thirsteth  ;  here 
"the  soul  cleaveth  after" — both  expressive  of  pursuit,  but  the  latter,  as 
consequent  upon  the  satisfaction  which  followed  upon  the  thirst,  speaks  of 
a  profounder  possession  and  of  a  less  sense  of  want. 

"  My  soul  cleaveth  after  God."  That  is  to  say,  inasmuch  as  He  is 
infinite,  and  this  nature  of  mine  is  incapable  of  indefinite  expansion,  each 
new  possession  of  Him  which  follows  upon  an  enlarged  desire  will  open 
the  elastic  walls  of  my  heart  so  that  they  shall  enclose  a  wider  space  and  be 
capable  of  holding  more  of  God,  and  therefore  I  shall  possess  more. 
Desire  expands  the  heart ;  possession  expands  the  heart.  More  of  God 
comes  when  we  can  hold  more  of  Him,  and  the  end  of  all  fruition  is  the 
renewed  desire  after  further  fruition. 

This  world's  gifts  cloy  and  never  satisfy  ;  God  satisfies  and  never  cloys. 
And  we  have,  and  we  shall  have,  if  we  are  His  children,  the  double  delight 
of  a  continual  fruition  and  a  continued  desire.  So  we  shall  ascend,  if  I 
may  so  say,  in  ever  higher  and  higher  spirals,  which  will  rise  further  and 
draw  in  more  closelj^  towards  the  unreached  and  unattainable  Throne  of 
the  Blessed  Himself:  "  My  soul  thirsteth  "  ;  "  my  soul  is  satisfied  "  ;  "  my 
satisfied  soul  still  longs  and  follows." 

And  then  there  is  also  very  beautifully  here  the  co-operation  and 
reciprocal  action  of  the  seeking  soul  and  of  the  sustaining  God.  **  My  soul 
followeth  hard  after  Thee  ;  Thy  right  hand  upholdeth  me."  We  hold  and 
we  are  held.  We  hold  because  we  are  held,  and  we  are  held  while  we 
hold.  We  follow,  and  yet  He  is  with  us  ;  we  long,  and  yet  we  possess  ; 
we  pursue,  and  yet  in  the  very  act  of  pursuit  we  are  upheld  by  His  hand. 
We  shall  not  follow  unless  He  holds  us  up.  He  will  not  hold  us  up 
unless  we  follow.  All  controversies  of  grace  and  freewill  are  reconciled 
and  lulled  to  sleep  in  tliese  great  words:  "My  soul  followeth  hard  after 
Thee  ;  Thy  right  hand  upholdeth  me." 

277 


THE   CERTAINTY   OF  VICTORY. 

But  those  that  seek  my  soul,  to  destroy  it,  shall  go  into  the  lower  parts  of 
the  earth.  They  shall  be  given  over  to  the  power  of  the  sword :  they  shall 
be  a  portion  for  foxes.  But  the  king  shall  rejoice  in  God  :  every  one  that 
sweareth  by  Iliin  shall  glory  :  for  the  mouth  of  them  thai  speak  lies  shall  be 
stopped. — Psalm  Ixiii.  9-11. 

This  last  portion  of  the  psalm  describes  one   consequence 

CO  er  .  ^£  piessing  after  God.  The  soul  thus  cleaving  and  following 
is  gif"ted  with  a  prophetic  certainty.  "  Those  that  seek  my  soul  are  destined 
for  destruction"  (so  is  the  probable  rendering);  "they  shall  go  into  the 
lower  parts  of  the  earth  " — swallowed  up  like  Korah  and  his  rebellious 
company.  "They  shall  each  be  given  up  to  the  power  of  the  sword" 
(as  the  words  might  be  rendered);  "they  shall  be  a  portion  for  foxes" 
(or  jackals^  as  the  word  means).  Their  unburied  bodies  shall  lie  in  the 
wilderness,  and  the  jackals  sliall  tear  and  devour.  David  regarded  his 
enemies  as  God's  enemies.  David's  point  of  view  permitted  him  to  exult 
with  a  stern  but  not  unrighteous  joy  in  their  destruction.  But  these  words 
are  not  prayer  nor  imprecation,  but  prophecy  and  the  insight  of  a  soul 
conscious  of  union  with  God,  and  therefore  assured  that  everything  which 
stands  in  the  way  of  its  possession  of  the  God  whom  it  loves  is  destined 
for  annihilation. 

And,  disengaging  the  words  from  the  mere  husk  and  shell  of  Old 
Testament  experience,  all  of  us,  if  we  cleave  to  God,  may  have  this 
confidence,  that  nothing  can  hinder  our  fellowship  with  God,  and  that 
whatsoever  stands  in  the  way  of  our  closer  union  with  Him  shall  l)e  swept 
out  of  the  way.  David's  certainty  of  the  destruction  of  his  foes  is  the  same 
triumphant  assurance,  on  a  lower  spiritual  level,  as  Paul's  trumpet  blast 
of  victory  :  "  Who  shall  separate  us  from  the  love  of  God  ?  Shall  tribula- 
tion, or  distress,  or  persecution,  or  famine,  or  nakedness,  or  peril,  or 
sword?"  "Nay,  in  all  these  things," — and  overall  these  things, — "we 
are  more  than  conquerors  through  Him  that  loved  us." 

There  is  the  other  side  of  this  prophetic  certainty  here.  "The  King 
shall  rejoice  in  God  ;  every  one  that  sweareth  by  Him  s:  all  glory."  He 
and  his  faithful  followers  shall  realise  a  Divine  deliverance,  which  shall  be 
the  su])ject  of  their  praise  ;  and  the  adversary's  lips  shall  be  sealed  with 
silence,  their  vindication  shall  slick  in  their  throat,  and  they  shall  be  dumb 
before  the  judgment  of  Almighty  God.  That  confidence,  too,  may  stand 
as  a  symbol  of  the  certainty  of  hope  which  refreshes  the  soul  wliich  seeks 
and  possesses  God,  even  in  the  wilderness,  and  while  compassed  with 
sorrows  and  fears.  We,  too,  may  find  in  our  present  union  with  God  a 
prophecy,  fixed  and  firm  as  the  pillars  of  His  throne,  of  our  future  kingly 
dignity,  and  rapturous  joy  in  Him.  It  is  reserved  not  for  us  only,  but  for 
all  whose  lips  confessed  Him  on  earth  and  shall  therefore  be  opened  to 
lift  up  before  Him  triumphant  praise,  which  shall  drown  the  disc<-rds  of 
opposing  voices,  and  no  more  be  broken  by  sobs  or  weeping. 

My  brother  !  we  are  all  thirsty.  Do  you  know  what  it  is  that  makes 
you  restless?  Do  you  know  who  it  is  that  you  need?  Listen  to  Him 
that  says,  "If  any  man  thirst,  let  Him  come  to  Me,  and  drink."  Choose 
whether  you  will  thirst  with  mad  and  aimless  cravings,  and  perish  in  a  dry 
land;  or  whether  you  will  come  to  the  "  Fountain  of  Lite  in  Christ  your 
Saviour,  and  slake  your  thirst  at  God  Himself." 

278 


THE   PARADOX  OF   LOVE'S   MEASURE. 
Of  His  fulness  vce  all  received^  and  grace  for  grace. — John  i.  i6. 

_  -  _  It  is  the  immeasurable  measure,  the  boundless  bounds  and 
dimensions  of  the  love  of  Christ,  which  iires  the  Apostle's 
thoughts  when  writing  to  the  Ephesian  Church  (Eph.  iii.  17-19).  Of  course 
he  had  no  separate  idea  in  his  mind  attaching  to  each  of  these  measures 
of  magnitude,  but  he  gathered  them  all  together  simply  to  express  the  one 
thought  of  the  greatness  of  Christ's  love. 

Depth  and  height  are  the  same  dimension  measured  from  opposite  ends. 
The  one  begins  at  the  top  and  goes  down,  the  other  begins  at  the  bottom 
and  goes  up,  but  the  surface  is  the  same  in  either  case.  So  we  have  the 
three  dimensions  of  a  solid  here — breadth,  length,  and  depth. 

And  I  suppose  that  I  may  venture  to  use  these  expressions  with  a  some- 
what different  purpose  from  that  for  which  the  Apostle  employs  them  ;  and 
to  see  in  each  of  them  a  separate  and  blessed  aspect  of  the  love  of  God  in 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 

And  that  love  v/hich  thus  towers  above  us,  and  gleams  the  summit  and 
the  apex  of  the  universe,  like  the  shining  cross  on  the  top  of  some  lofty 
cathedral  spire,  does  not  gleam  there  above  us  inaccessible,  nor  lie  before 
us  like  some  pathless  precipice,  up  which  nothing  that  has  not  wings  can 
ever  hope  to  rise  ;  but  the  height  of  the  love  of  Christ  is  a  hospitable  height, 
which  can  be  scaled  by  us.  Nay,  rather,  that  heaven  of  love,  which  is 
"higher  than  our  thoughts,"  bends  down,  as  by  a  kind  of  optical  delusion 
the  physical  heaven  seems  to  do,  towards  each  of  us,  only  with  this  blessed 
difference,  that  in  the  natural  world  the  place  where  heaven  touches  earth 
is  always  the  furthest  point  of  distance  from  us  ;  and  in  the  spiritual  world, 
the  place  where  heaven  stoops  to  me  is  always  right  over  my  head,  and 
the  nearest  possible  point  tome.  He  has  come  to  lift  us  to  Himself.  And 
this  is  the  height  of  His  love,  that  it  bears  us  up,  if  we  will,  up  and  up 
to  sit  upon  that  throne  where  He  Himself  is  enthroned. 

So  round  about  us  all,  as  some  sunny  tropical  sea  may  embosom  in  its 
violet  waves  a  multitude  of  luxuriant  and  happy  islets,  so  all  of  us,  islanded 
on  our  little  individual  lives,  lie  in  that  great  ocean  of  love,  all  the  dimen- 
sions of  which  are  immeasurable,  and  which  stretches  above,  beneath, 
around,  shoreless,  tideless,  bottomless,  endless. 

But  remember  !  this  ocean  of  love  you  can  shut  out  of  your  lives.  It  is 
possible  to  plunge  a  jar  into  miu-Atlanlic,  further  than  soundings  have  ever 
descended,  and  to  bring  it  up  on  deck  as  dry  inside  as  if  it  had  been  Ipng 
on  an  oven.  It  is  possible  for  us  to  live  and  move  and  have  our  being  in 
that  sea  of  love,  and  never  to  have  got  one  drop  of  its  richest  gifts  into 
our  hearts  or  our  lives.  Open  your  heart  for  Him  to  come  in  by  humble 
faith  in  His  great  sacrifice  for  you.  For  if  Christ  dwell  in  your  heart 
by  faith,  then,  and  only  then,  will  experience  be  your  guide  ;  and  you 
will  be  able  to  comprehend  the  boundless  greatness,  the  endless  duration, 
the  absolute  perfection,  and  to  know  the  love  of  Christ  which  passeth 
knowledge, 

279 


THE  BREADTH  OF  THE  LOVE  OF  CHRIST. 

There  the  Lord  ivill  be  wiih  us  iti  majesty,  a  place  of  broad  rivers  and 
streams. — Isaiah  xxxiii.  21. 

The  love  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus  is  as  broad  as  humanity. 
October  6.  ^^^  ^^|j  ^^^  stars  lie  in  the  firmament,  so  all  creatures  rest  in 
the  heaven  of  His  love.  Mankind  has  many  common  characteristics.  We 
all  suffer,  we  all  sin,  we  all  hunger,  we  all  aspire  ;  and,  blessed  be  God  !  we 
all  occupy  precisely  the  same  relation  to  the  love,  the  Divine  love,  which 
lies  in  Jesus  Christ.  There  are  no  step-children  in  His  great  family,  and 
none  of  them  receive  a  more  grudging  or  less  ample  share  of  His  love  and 
goodness  than  every  other.  Broad  as  the  race,  and  curtaining  it  over  as 
some  great  tent  may  enclose  on  a  festal  day  a  wliole  tribe,  the  breadth 
of  Christ's  love  is  the  breadth  of  humanity.  And  it  is  universal  because  it 
is  Divine.  No  human  heart  can  be  stretched  so  as  to  comprehend  the 
whole  of  the  members  of  mankind,  and  no  human  heart  can  be  so  emptied 
of  self  as  to  be  capable  of  this  absolute  universality  and  impartiality  of 
affection.  But  the  intellectu.il  difficulties  which  stand  in  the  way  of  the 
width  of  our  human  affection,  and  the  moral  difficulties  which  stand  still 
more  frowningly  and  forbiddingly  in  the  way,  all  disappear  before  that 
love  of  Christ's  vv'hich  is  close  and  tender,  and  clinging  with  all  the  tender- 
ness and  closeness  and  clingingness  of  a  human  and  lofty  and  universal 
and  passionless  and  perpetual,  with  all  the  height  and  breadth  and  calm- 
ness and  eternity  of  a  Divine,  heart. 

And  this  broad  love,  broad  as  humanity,  is  not  shallow  because  it  is 
broad.  Our  human  affections  are  too  often  like  the  estuary  of  some  great 
stream  which  runs  deep  and  mighty  as  long  as  it  is  held  within  narrow 
banks,  but  as  soon  as  it  widens  becomes  slow  and  powerless  and  shallow. 
The  intensity  of  human  affection  varies  inversely  as  its  extension.  A 
universal  philanthropy  is  a  passionless  sentiment.  But  Christ's  love  is 
deep,  though  it  be  wide,  and  suffers  no  diminution  because  it  is  shared 
amongst  a  multitude.  It  is  like  the  great  feast  that  He  Himself  spread, 
five  thousand  men,  women,  and  children,  all  seated  at  a  table,  "and  they 
did  all  eat  and  were  filled." 

The  whole  love  is  the  property  of  each  recipient  of  it.  It  is  not  as  it  is 
with  us,  who  give  a  part  of  our  heart  to  this  one  and  to  that  one,  and 
share  the  treasure  of  our  affections  amongst  a  multitude.  All  this  gift  belongs 
to  every  one,  just  as  all  the  sunshine  comes  to  every  eyo,  and  as  every 
beholder  sees  the  moon  path  across  the  dark  waters,  stretching  from  tlie 
place  where  he  stands  to  the  centre  of  light. 

There  are  two  ways  of  arguing  about  the  love  of  Christ,  both  of  them 
valid,  and  both  of  them  needing  to  be  employed  by  us.  We  have  a  right 
to  say,  "He  loves  all,  therefore  He  loves  me."  And  we  have  a  right  to 
say,  "  He  loves  me,  therefore  He  loves  all."  For  surely  the  love  that  has 
stooped  to  me  can  never  pass  by  any  human  soul.  What  is  the  bread ili 
of  the  love  of  Christ  ?     It  is  broad  as  mankind,  it  is  narrow  as  myself. 

280 


THE   LENGTH   OF  CHRIST'S   LOVE. 

The  mercy  of  the  Lord  ts  from  everlasting  to  everlasting  upon  them  flmt 
fear  Him. — PsALM  ciii.  17. 

What  is  the  length  of  the  love  of  Christ  ?  If  we  are  to 
c  0  er  7.  |.]^jj^]^  yf  j^ij-n  only  as  a  man,  however  exalted  and  hov/ever 
perfect,  you  and  I  have  nothing  in  the  world  to  do  with  His  love.  When 
He  was  here  on  earth  it  may  have  been  sent  down  the  generations  in  some 
vague,  pale  way,  as  the  shadowy  ghost  of  love  may  rise  in  the  heart  of  a 
great  statesman  or  philanthropist  for  generations  yet  unborn,  which  he 
dimly  sees  will  be  affected  by  his  sacrifice  and  service.  But  we  do  not 
call  that  love.  Such  a  poor,  pale,  shadowy  thing  has  no  right  to  the  warm, 
throbbing  name  ;  has  no  right  to  demand  from  us  any  answering  thrill  of 
affection  ;  and  unless  you  think  of  Jesus  Christ  as  something  more  and 
other  than  the  purest  and  the  loftiest  benevolence  that  ever  dwelt  in  human 
form,  I  know  of  no  intelligible  sense  in  which  the  length  of  His  love  can  be 
stretched  to  touch  you.  And  if  we  content  ourselves  with  that  altogether 
inadequate  and  lame  conception  of  Him  and  of  His  nature,  of  course  there 
is  no  present  Ijond  between  any  man  upon  earth  and  Him,  and  it  is  absurd 
to  talk  about  His  present  love  as  extending  in  any  way  to  me.  But  we 
have  to  believe,  rising  to  the  full  height  of  the  Christian  conception  of  the 
nature  and  person  of  Christ,  that  when  He  was  here  on  earth  the  Divine 
that  dwelt  in  Him  so  informed  and  inspired  the  human  as  that  the  love  of 
His  man's  heart  was  able  to  grasp  the  whole,  and  to  separate  the  individuals 
that  should  make  up  the  race  till  the  end  of  time  ;  so  as  that  you  and  I, 
looking  back  over  all  the  centuries,  and  asking  ourselves  what  is  the  length 
of  the  love  of  Christ,  can  say,  *'  It  stretches  over  all  the  years,  and  it 
reached  then  as  it  reaches  now  to  touch  me,  upon  whom  the  ends  of  the 
earth  have  come." 

That  thought  of  eternal  being,  when  we  refer  it  to  God,  towers  above 
us  and  repels  us  ;  and  when  we  turn  it  to  ourselves,  and  think  of  our  own 
life  as  unending,  there  comes  a  strangeness  and  an  awe  that  is  almost 
shrinking  over  the  thoughtful  spirit.  But  when  we  transmute  it  into  the 
thought  of  a  love  whose  length  is  unending,  then,  over  all  the  shoreless, 
misty,  melancholy  sea  of  eternity,  there  gleams  a  light,  and  every  wavelet 
flashes  up  into  glory.  There  is  another  measure  of  the  length  of  the  love 
oi  Christ.  "  Master  !  How  often  shall  my  brother  sin  against  me,  and  I 
forgive  him  ?"  "I  say  not  unto  thee  until  seven  times,  but  until  seventy 
times  seven."  So  said  the  Christ,  multiplying  perfection  into  itself  twice 
— two  sevens  and  a  ten— in  order  to  express  the  idea  of  boundlessness. 
And  the  law  that  He  laid  down  for  His  servant  is  the  law  that  binds  Him- 
self The  pitying  Christ,  the  eternal  Lover  of  all  wandering  souls,  looks 
down  from  Heaven  upon  every  one  of  us  ;  goes  with  us  in  all  our  wander- 
ings ;  bears  with  us  in  all  our  sins.  His  pleadings  sound  on,  like  some  stop 
in  an  organ  continuously  persistent  through  all  the  other  notes.  And 
round  His  throne  are  written  the  Divine  words  which  have  been  spoken 
about  our  human  love  modelled  after  His.  "Charity  suffereth  long,  and  is 
kind  ;  is  not  easily  provoked,  is  not  soon  angry,  beareth  all  things."  The 
length  of  the  love  of  Christ  is  the  length  of  eternity,  and  out-measures  all 
human  sin. 

281 


THE   HEIGHT  AND   DEPTH   OF   THE   LOVE   OF   CHRIST. 

O  the  depth  of  the  riches  both  of  the  wisdom  and  the  knowledge  of  God ! 
— Rom.  xi.  33. 

«  1.  1.     o      Depth  and  height  are  but  two  ways  of  expressing  the  same 
October  8.        ,.  .  ,,    *=>  1       •       *  ..u     ..  1  j 

dimension  ;  the  one  we  begm  at  the  top  and  measure  down, 

the  other  we  begin  at  the  bottom  and  measure  up.  The  top  is  the  Throne  ; 
and  the  downward  measure — how  is  it  to  be  stated  ?  In  what  terms  of 
distance  are  we  to  express  it  ?  How  far  is  it  from  the  Throne  of  the 
Universe  to  the  manger  at  Bethlehem  and  the  Cross  at  Calvary  and  the 
sepulchre  in  the  garden  !  That  is  the  depth  of  the  love  of  Christ.  How- 
soever far  may  be  the  distance  from  that  loftiness  of  co-equal  Divinity  in 
the  bosom  of  the  Father,  and  radiant  with  glory,  to  the  lowliness  of  the 
form  of  a  servant,  and  the  sorrows,  limitations,  rejections,  pains,  and  final 
death — that  is  the  measure  of  the  depth  of  Christ's  love.  As  if  some  planet 
were  to  burst  from  its  track  and  plunge  downwards  in  amongst  the  mists 
and  the  narrowness  of  our  earthly  atmosphere,  so  we  can  estimate  the 
depth  of  the  love  of  Christ  by  saying,  "He  came  from  above,  He  taber- 
nacled with  us."  The  way  to  measure  the  depth  is  to  begin  at  the  Throne, 
and  go  down  to  the  Cross  and  to  the  foul  abysses  of  evil.  The  way  to 
measure  the  height  is  to  begin  at  the  Cross  and  the  foul  abysses  of  evil,  and 
to  go  up  to  the  Throne.  That  is  to  say,  the  topmost  thing  in  the  Universe, 
the  shining  apex  and  summit,  glittering  away  up  there  in  the  radiant  un- 
setting  light,  is  the  love  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ. 

A  well-known  modern  scientist  has  hazarded  the  speculation  that  the 
origin  of  life  on  this  planet  has  been  the  falling  upon  it  of  the  fragment  of 
a  meteor  or  an  aerolite,  from  some  other  system,  with  a  speck  of  organic 
life  upon  it,  from  which  all  has  developed.  Whatever  may  be  the  case  in 
regard  of  the  physical  life,  that  is  absolutely  true  in  the  case  of  spiritual  life. 
It  all  comes  because  this  Heaven  descended  Christ  has  come  down  the 
long  staircase  of  Incarnation,  and  has  brought  with  Him  into  the  clouds 
and  oppressions  of  our  terrestrial  atmosphere  a  germ  of  life  which  He  has 
planted  in  the  heart  of  the  race,  there  to  spread  for  ever.  That  is  the 
measure  of  the  depth  of  the  love  of  Christ.  And  there  is  another  way  to 
measure  it.  My  sins,  my  helpless  miseries,  are  deep  :  but  they  are  shallow 
as  compared  with  the  love  that  goes  down  beneath  all  sin  ;  that  is  deeper 
than  all  sorrow,  deeper  than  all  necessity  ;  that  shrinks  from  no  degrada- 
tion ;  that  turns  away  from  no  squalor  ;  that  abhors  no  wickedness  so  as  to 
avert  its  face  from  it.  When  a  coal-pit  gets  blocked  up  by  some  explosion, 
no  brave  rescuing  party  will  venture  to  descend  into  the  lowest  depths  of 
the  poisonous  darkness  until  some  ventilation  has  come  there.  But  this 
loving  Christ  goes  down,  down,  down  into  the  thickest,  most  pestilential 
atmosphere,  reeking  with  sin  and  corruption,  and  stretches  out  a  rescuing 
hand  to  the  most  abject  and  undermost  of  all  the  victims.  How  deep  is 
the  love  of  Christ  ?  The  deep  mines  of  sin  and  of  alienation  are  all  under- 
mined and  countermined  by  His  love.  Sin  is  an  abyss,  a  mystery,  how 
deep  only  they  know  who  have  fought  against  it  ;  but 

"O  Love  !  t'.iou  bottomless  abyss, 
My  sius  are  swallowed  up  m  Tiiee." 

2S2 


DEATH   AND   GROWTH. 

And  Joseph  died,  and  all  his  brethren,  and  all  that  generation.  And 
the  children  of  Israel  tvcre  fruitful,  and  increased  abundundy,  and  -multi' 
plied,  and  waxed  exceeding  uiiglity. — Exod.  i.  6,  7. 

rt  i.  V-    o       Here  we  have  an  illustration  of  a  twofold  process  which  is 
October  9.        ,  ^  11^1  ,     •  ," 

always  at   work — silent  dropping  away  and  suont  gro\\'th. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  writer  of  these  words  in  Exodus,  probably  un- 
consciously, being  profoundly  impressed  with  certain  features  of  that 
dropping  away,  reproduces  them  most  strikingly  in  the  very  structure  of 
his  sentence  :  "Joseph  died,  and  all  his  brethren,  and  all  that  generation." 
The  uniformity  of  the  fate,  and  the  separate  times  at  which  it  befel  in- 
dividuals, are  strongly  set  forth  in  the  clauses,  which  sound  like  the  three- 
fold falls  of  earth  on  a  coffin.  They  all  died,  but  not  all  at  the  same  time  ; 
they  went  one  by  one,  one  by  one,  till,  at  the  end,  they  were  all  gone. 

If  you  were  ever  out  at  sea,  and  looked  over  a  somewhat  stormy 
water,  you  will  have  noticed,  I  dare  say,  how  strangely  the  white  crests  of 
the  breakers  disappear,  as  if  some  force,  acting  from  beneath,  had  plucked 
them  under,  and  over  the  spot  where  they  gleamed  for  a  moment  runs  the 
blue  sea.  So  the  waves  break  over  the  great  ocean  of  time,  I  might  say, 
like  swimmers  pulled  under  by  sharks — man  after  man,  man  alter  man, 
gets  twitched  down,  till  at  the  end — "And  Joseph  died,  and  all  his 
brethren,  and  all  that  generation." 

There  is  another  process  going  on  side  by  side  with  this.  In  the 
vegetable  world,  spring  and  autumn  are  two  different  seasons  ;  May  rejoices 
in  green  leaves  and  opening  buds,  and  nests  with  their  young  broods  ;  but 
winter  days  are  coming  when  the  greenery  drops  and  the  nests  are  dry,  and 
the  birds  flown.  But  the  singular  and  impressive  thing  (which  we  should 
see  if  we  were  not  so  foolish  and  blind)  is  that  at  the  same  time  the  two 
opposite  processes  of  death  and  renewal  are  going  on  ;  so  that  if  you  look  at 
the  facts  from  the  one  side,  it  seems  nothing  but  a  charnel-house  and  a  Gol- 
gotha that  we  Hve  in,  while,  seen  from  the  other  side,  it  is  a  scene  of 
rejoicing,  budding  young  life  and  growth.  You  get  these  two  processes 
in  the  closest  juxtaposition  in  ordinary  hfe.  There  is  many  a  house  where 
there  is  a  coffin  upstairs  and  a  cradle  downstairs.  The  churchyard  is  often 
the  children's  playground  The  web  is  being  run  down  at  the  one  end  and 
woven  at  the  other.     Wherever  we  look — 

"  Every  moment,  di^s  a  man, 
Every  moment  one  is  born." 

**  Joseph  died,  and  all  his  brethren,  and  all  that  generation.  And  the 
children  of  Israel  .  .  .  multiplied  .  .  .   exceedingly." 

But  there  is  another  thought  here  than  that  of  the  contemporaneousness 
of  the  two  processes,  and  that  is,  as  it  is  written  on  John  Wesley's  monu- 
ment in  Westminster  Abbey,  "God  buries  the  workmen  and  carries  on  the 
work."  The  great  Vizier  who  seemed  to  be  the  only  protection  of  Israel 
is  lying  in  "a  coffin  in  Egypt."  And  all  these  truculent  brothers  of  his 
that  had  tormented  him,  they  are  gone,  and  the  whole  generation  is  swept 
away.  What  of  that  ?  They  were  the  depositories  of  God's  purposes  for 
a  little  while.  Are  God's  purposes  dead  because  the  instruments  that 
wrought  them  in  part  are  gone  ?  By  no  means.  If  I  might  use  a  very 
vulgar  proverb,  "  There  are  as  good  fish  in  the  sea  as  ever  came  out  of  it," 
especially  if  God  casts  the  net.  So  when  the  one  generation  has  passed 
away,  there  is  the  other  to  take  up  the  work. 


"GOD    BURIES    HIS    WORKMEN,    AND    CARRIES    ON  HIS 

WORK." 

But  I  said,  I  have  laboured  in  vain,  I  have  spent  my  strength  for 
nought  and  vanity  :  yet  surely  7:ty  judgment  is  with  the  Lord,  and  my 
recompense  with  my  God. — Is  A.  xlix.  4. 

October  10  The  twofold  process  always  at  work — the  silent  dropping 
away  and  silent  growth — suggests  lessons  which  should  be 
enforced.  Let  us  be  quite  sure  that  we  give  them  their  due  weight  in  our 
thoughts  and  lives,  that  we  never  give  an  undue  weight  to  the  one  half  of 
the  whole  truth.  There  are  plenty  of  people  who  are  far  too  much,  con- 
stitutionally and  (perhaps  by  reason  of  a  mistaken  notion  of  religion) 
rehgiously,  inclined  to  the  contemplation  of  the  more  melancholy  side  of 
these  truths  ;  and  there  are  a  great  many  people  who  are  far  too  exclusively 
disposed  to  the  contemplation  of  the  other.  But  the  bulk  of  us  never 
trouble  our  heads  about  either  the  one  or  the  other,  but  go  on,  forgetting 
altogether  that  swift,  sudden,  stealthy,  skinny  hand  that  is  put  out  to  lay 
hold  of  the  swimmer  and  then  pull  him  underneath  the  water  ;  and  which 
v/ill  clasp  us  by  the  ankles  one  day,  and  draw  us  down.  Do  you  ever 
think  about  it?  If  not,  surely,  surely  you  are  leaving  out  of  sight  one  of 
what  ought  to  be  the  formative  elements  in  our  lives.  And  then,  on  the 
other  hand,  when  our  hearts  are  faint,  or  when  the  pressure  of  human 
mortality — our  own,  that  of  our  dear  ones,  or  that  of  others— seems  to 
weigh  us  dov/n,  or  when  it  looks  to  us  as  if  God's  work  was  failing  for  want 
of  people  to  do  it,  let  us  remember  the  other  side.  So  we  shall  keep  the 
middle  path,  which  is  the  path  of  safety,  and  so  avoid  the  folly  of  extremes. 
This  double  contemplation  of  the  two  processes  under  which  we  live  ought 
to  stimulate  us  to  service.  It  ought  to  say  to  us,  "Cast  in  your  lot  with 
that  work  which  is  going  to  be  carried  on  through  the  ages.  See  to  it  that 
your  little  task  is  in  the  same  line  of  direction  as  the  great  purpose  which 
God  is  working  out — the  increasing  purpose  which  runs  through  the  ages." 
An  individual  life  is  a  mere  little  bo.ckwater,  as  it  were,  in  the  great  ocean. 
But  the  minuteness  does  not  matter,  if  only  the  great  tidal  wave  which  rolls 
away  out  there,  in  the  depths  and  the  distance  amongst  the  fathomless 
abysses,  tells  also  on  the  tiny  pool  far  inland  and  yet  connected  with  the 
sea,  with  some  narrow  long  fiord. 

If  my  little  life  is  part  of  that  great  ocean,  then  the  ebb  and  flow  will 
alike  act  on  it  and  make  it  wholesome.  If  my  work  is  done  in  and  for 
God,  I  shall  never  have  to  look  back  and  say,  as  we  certainly  shall  say  one 
day,  either  here  or  yonder,  unless  our  lives  be  thus  part  of  the  Divine  plan, 
"  What  a  fool  I  was  !  Seventy  years  of  toihng  and  moiling  and  effort  and 
sweat,  and  it  has  all  come  to  nothing  ;  like  a  long  algebraic  sum  that  covers 
pages  of  intricate  calculations,  and  the  j-Vzifj^j  and  minuses  just  balance 
each  other  :  and  the  net  result  is  a  big  round  nought."  So  let  us  remember 
the  twofold  process,  and  let  it  stir  us  to  make  sure  that  "in  our  embers" 
shall  be  "something  that  doth  live,"  and  that,  not  "Nature,"  but  some- 
thing better — God — remembers  what  was  so  fugitive.  It  is  not  fugitive  ii 
it  is  a  part  of  the  mighty  whole. 

2S4 


OUR  INSIGNIFICANT  AND  UNFINISHED  WORK. 

And  he  died  in  a  good  old  age,  full  of  days,  riches,  and  honour  ;   and 
Solomon  his  son  reigned  in  his  siead. — i  Chron.  xxix.  28. 

11      Joseph   might   have    said    when    he   lay   dpng :    "Well! 

October  11.  pgj.}^^pg  j  made  a  mistake  after  all.  I  should  not  have 
brought  this  people  down  here,  even  if  I  have  been  led  hither.  I  do  not 
see  that  I  have  helped  them  one  step  towards  the  possession  of  the  land." 
Do  you  remember  the  old  proverb  about  certain  people  who  should  not  see 
half-finished  work  ?  All  our  work  in  this  world  has  to  be  only  what  the 
physiologists  call  functional.  God  has  a  great  scheme  running  on  through 
ages.  Joseph  gives  it  a  helping  hand  for  a  bit,  and  then  somebody  else 
takes  up  the  running,  and  carries  the  purpose  forward  a  Uttle  further.  A 
great  many  hands  are  placed  on  the  ropes  that  draw  the  car  of  the  Ruler  of 
the  world— and  one  after  another  they  get  stiffened  in  death  ;  but  the  car 
goes  on.  We  should  be  contented  to  do  our  httle  bit  of  the  work  :  never 
mind  whether  it  is  complete  and  smooth  and  rounded  or  not ;  never  mind 
whether  it  can  be  isolated  from  the  rest  and  held  up,  and  people  can  say 
"  He  did  that  entire  thing  unaided."  That  is  not  the  way  for  most  of  us. 
A  great  many  threads  go  to  make  the  piece  of  cloth,  and  a  great  many 
throws  of  the  shuttle  to  weave  the  web.  A  great  many  bits  of  glass  make 
up  the  mosaic  pattern  ;  and  there  is  no  reason  for  the  red  bit  to  pride 
itself  on  its  fiery  glow,  or  the  grey  bit  to  boast  of  its  silvery  coolness. 
They  are  all  parts  of  the  pattern,  and  as  long  as  they  keep  their  right  places 
they  complete  the  artist's  design.  Thus,  if  we  think  of  how  one  soweth 
and  another  reapeth,  we  may  be  content  to  receive  half-done  works  from 
our  fathers,  and  to  hand  on  unfinished  tasks  to  them  that  come  after  us.  It 
is  not  a  great  trial  of  a  man's  modesty,  if  he  lives  near  Jesus  Christ,  to  be 
content  to  do  but  a  very  small  bit  of  the  Master's  work. 

Moses  dies  ;  Joshua  catches  the  torch  from  his  hand.  And  the  reason 
why  he  catches  the  torch  from  his  hand  is  because  God  said,  "As  I  was 
with  Moses,  so  I  will  be  with  thee.'*  Therefore  we  have  to  turn  away  in 
our  contemplations  from  the  mortality  that  has  swallowed  up  so  much 
wisdom  and  strength,  eloquence  and  power,  which  the  Church  or  our  own 
hearts  seem  so  sorely  to  want ;  and,  whilst  we  do,  we  have  to  look  up  to 
Jesus  Christ,  and  say,  "  He  lives  !  He  lives  !  No  man  is  indispensable  for 
public  work,  or  for  private  affection  and  solace,  so  long  as  there  is  a  living 
Christ  for  us  to  hold  by."  We  need  that  conviction  for  ourselves  often. 
When  life  seems  empty  and  hope  dead,  and  nothing  is  able  to  fill  the 
vacuity  or  still  the  pain,  we  have  to  look  to  the  vision  of  the  Lord  sitting  on 
the  empty  throne,  high  and  Hfted  up,  and  yet  very  near  the  aching  and 
void  heart.  Christ  lives,  and  that  is  enough.  So  the  separated  workers  in 
all  the  generations,  who  did  their  little  bit  of  service,  like  the  many 
generations  of  builders  who  laboured  through  centuries  upon  the 
completion  of  some  great  cathedral,  will  be  united  at  the  last;  "and  he 
that  soweth,  and  he  that  reapeth,  shall  rejoice  together  "  in  the  harvest 
which  neither  the  sower  nor  the  reaper  had  produced,  but  He  who  blessed 
the  toils  of  both. 

285 


COSTLY  AND  FATAL  HELP. 

He  sacrificed  unto  the  gods  of  Damafcus^  ivhich  smote  him ;  and  ke 
said,  Because  the  gods  of  the  kings  of  Syria  help  thetn,  therefore  will  I 
sacrifice  to  them,  that  they  may  help  me.  But  they  were  the  ruin  of  him, 
and  of  all  Israel. — 2  CllRON.  xxviii.  23. 

0  *  h  12  ■A.HAZ  came  to  the  throne  when  a  youth  of  twentj-.  From 
the  beginning  he  reversed  the  policy  of  his  father,  and  threw 
himself  into  the  arms  of  the  heathen  party.  In  a  comparatively  short  reign 
of  sixteen  years  he  stamped  out  the  worship  of  God,  and  nearly  ruined  the 
kingdom.  He  did  not  plunge  into  idolatry  for  want  of  good  advice.  The 
greatest  of  the  prophets  stood  beside  him.  Isaiah  addressed  to  him  re- 
monstrances which  might  have  made  the  most  reckless  pause,  and  promises 
which  might  have  kindled  hope  and  courage  in  the  bosom  of  despair. 
Hosea  in  the  northern  kingdom,  Micah  in  Judah,  and  other  less  brilliant 
names  were  amongst  the  stars  which  shone  even  in  that  dark  night.  But 
their  light  was  all  in  vain.  The  foolish  lad  had  got  the  bit  between  his 
teeth,  and,  like  many  another  young  man,  thought  to  show  his  "  breadth" 
and  his  "spirit"  by  neglecting  his  father's  counsellors  and  abandoning 
his  father's  faith.  He  was  ready  to  worship  anything  that  called  itself  a 
god,  always  excepting  Jehovah.  The  more  he  multiplied  his  gods  the 
more  he  multiplied  his  sorrows,  and  the  more  he  multiplied  his  sorrows 
the  more  he  multiplied  his  gods.  From  all  sides  the  invaders  came  ; 
from  north,  north-east,  east,  south-east,  south,  they  swarmed  in  upon 
him.  They  tore  away  the  fringes  of  his  kingdom  ;  and  hostile  armies 
flaunted  their  banners  beneath  the  very  wails  of  Jerusalem.  And  then,  in 
his  despair,  like  a  scorpion  in  a  circle  of  fire,  he  inflicted  a  deadly  wound 
on  himself  by  calling  in  the  fatal  help  of  Assyria.  Nothing  loth,  that 
warlike  power  responded,  scattered  his  less  formidable  foes,  and  then 
swallowed  the  prey  which  it  had  dragged  from  between  the  teeth  of  the 
Israelites  and  Syrians.  The  result  of  Ahaz's  frantic  appeals  to  false  gods 
and  faithless  men  may  still  be  read  on  the  Cuneiform  inscriptions,  wliere 
amidst  a  long  list  of  unknown  tributary  kings,  stands,  with  a  Philistine 
on  one  side  of  him  and  an  Ammonite  on  the  other,  the  shameful  record, 
"Ahaz  of  Judah." 

Is  the  breed  extinct,  think  you  ?  Is  there  anybody  who,  if  he  cannot 
get  what  he  wants  by  foir  ways,  will  try  to  get  it  by  foul  ?  Do  none  of  you 
ever  bow  down  to  Satan  for  a  slice  of  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  ?  Ahaz 
has  got  plenty  of  brothers  and  sisters. 

This  story  illustrates  what,  alas  !  is  only  too  true.  Look  at  the  so- 
called  cultured  classes  of  Europe  to-day  ;  turning  away,  as  so  many  of 
them  are,  from  the  Lord  God  of  their  fathers — what  sort  of  things  are  they 
v/orshipping  instead  ?  Scraps  from  Budhism,  the  Vedas,  any  sacred  books 
but  the  Bible  ;  quackeries  and  Charlatanism,  and  dreams,  and  fragmentary 
philosophies  all  pieced  together,  to  try  and  make  up  a  whole,  instead  of 
the  old-fashioned  whole  that  they  have  left  behind  them.  "  The  garment 
is  narrower  than  that  a  man  can  wrap  himself  in  it."  And  a  creed 
patched  together  so  will  never  make  a  seamless  whole  which  can  be  trusted 
not  to  rend.  Ahaz  had,  as  he  thought,  two  strings  to  his  bow.  lie  had 
the  gods  of  Damascus,  and  of  other  lands  up  there  ;  he  had  the  King  of 
Assyria  down  here.  They  both  of  them  exacted  onerous  terms  before  they 
would  stir  a  foot  to  his  aid.  Do  you  buy  this  world's  help  any  cheaper? 
Yqu  zn\  nothing  for  nothing  in  that  market.      It  is  a  bii^  price. 

2U 


WHOLE-HEARTED   RELIGION. 

They  ...  sought  Him  with  their  whole  desire  ;  and  He  was  found  of 
them  :  and  the  Lord  gave  them  rest  round  about. — 2  Chron.  xv.  15. 

.  One  reason  why  the  great  mass  of  professing  Christians 
make  so  little  of  their  religion  is  because  they  are  only  l;alf- 
hearted  in  it.  If  you  divide  a  river  into  two  streams  the  force  of  each  is 
less  than  half  the  power  of  the  original  current  ;  and  the  chances  are  that 
you  will  make  a  stagnant  marsh  where  there  used  to  be  a  flowing  stream. 
"  All  in  all,  or  not  at  all,"  is  the  rule  for  life  in  all  departments.  It  is  a 
rule  in  daily  business.  A  man  that  has  only  half  himself  in  his  profession 
or  trade,  M'hile  the  other  half  is  dreaming,  is  predestined  to  fail.  The 
same  is  true  about  our  religion.  If  you  and  I  attend  to  it  as  a  kind  of  by- 
occupation  ;  if  we  give  the  balance  of  our  time  and  the  superfluity  of  our 
energy,  after  we  have  done  a  hard  day's  work — say,  an  hour  upon  a 
Sunday — to  seeking  God,  and  devote  all  the  rest  of  the  week  to  seeking 
worldly  prosperity,  it  is  no  wonder  if  our  religion  languishes,  and  is 
mainly  a  matter  of  forms,  as  it  is  with  such  hosts  of  people  that  call  them- 
selves Christians.  There  is  more  unconscious  unreality  in  the  average 
Christian  man's  endeavour  to  be  a  better  Christian  than  there  is  in  almost 
anything  else  in  the  world  : 

*'  One  foot  on  the  sea,  and  one  on  land, 
To  one  thing'  constant  never." 

That  is  why  so  many  of  us  know  nothing  of  a  progressive  strengthening  of 
our  faith,  and  an  increasing  conquest  of  ourselves,  and  a  firmer  grasp  of 
God,  and  a  fuller  realisatTon  of  the  blessedness  of  walking  in  His  ways. 
This  whole-heartedness  does  not  mean  that  there  are  to  be  no  other  desires, 
for  it  is  a  great  mistake  to  pit  religion  against  other  things  which  are  meant 
to  be  its  instruments  and  its  helps.  We  are  not  required  to  seek  nothing 
else  in  order  to  seek  God  wholly.  He  demands  no  impossible  and  fantastic 
detachment  of  ourselves  from  the  ordinary  and  legitimate  occupations, 
affections,  and  duties  of  human  life  ;  but  He  does  ask  that  the  dominant 
desire  after  Him  should  be  powerful  enough  to  express  itself  through  all 
our  actions,  and  that  we  should  seek  for  God  in  them  and  for  them  in 
God.  There  must  be  detachment  if  there  is  to  be  attachment.  If  some 
climbing  plant,  for  instance,  has  twisted  itself  round  the  unprofitable  thorns 
in  the  hedge,  the  gardener,  before  he  can  get  it  to  go  up  the  support  that 
it  is  meant  to  encircle,  has  carefully  to  detach  it  from  the  stays  to  which  it 
has  wantonly  clung,  taking  care  that  in  the  process  he  does  not  break  its 
tendrils  and  destroy  its  power  of  growth.  So,  to  train  our  souls  to  cleave 
to  God,  and  to  grow  on  round  the  great  stay  that  is  provided  for  us,  there 
is  needed,  as  an  essential  part  of  the  process,  the  voluntary,  conscious, 
conscientious,  and  constant  guarding  of  ourseh  es  from  the  vagrancies  of  our 
desires,  which  send  out  their  shoots  away  from  Him. 

It  is  when  God  comes  into  the  Temple  that  Dagon  falls  on  the  threshold. 
It  is  when  a  new  affection  begins  to  spring  in  the  heart  that  old  loves  are 
thrust  out  of  it.  To  seek  Him  with  the  whole  heart  is  to  engage  the  whole 
self  in  the  quest,  and  that  is  the  only  kind  of  seeking  which  has  the 
certainty  of  success. 

287 


THE  SEARCH  THAT  ALWAYS  FINDS. 

And  ye  shall  seek  Me,  and  find  Me,  when  ye  shall  search  for  Me  zmth  all 
your  heart. — Jer.  xxix.  13. 

0  toh  14  Anything  is  possible  rather  than  that  a  whole-hearted  search 
after  God  should  be  a  vain  search.  For  there  are,  in  that  case, 
two  seekers — God  is  seeking  for  us  more  truly  than  we  are  seeking  for  Him. 
And  if  the  mother  is  seeking  her  child,  and  the  child  its  mother,  it  will 
be  a  very  wide  desert  where  they  will  not  meet.  "The  Father  seeketh 
such  to  worship  Him."  That  is — the  Divine  activity  is  going  about  the 
world,  searching  for  the  heart  that  turns  to  Him,  and  it  cannot  but  be  that 
they  that  seek  Him  shall  find  Him.  Open  the  windows,  and  you  cannot 
keep  out  the  sunshine  ;  open  your  lungs,  and  you  cannot  keep  out  the  air. 
*'  In  Him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being  " ;  and  if  our  desires  turn, 
however  blindly,  to  Him,  and  are  accompanied  with  the  appropriate  action, 
heaven  and  earth  are  more  likely  to  rush  to  ruin  than  such  a  searching  to  be 
frustrated  of  its  aim. 

Is  there  anything  else  in  the  world  of  which  you  can  say,  "Seek,  and  ye 
shall  find  "  ?  We,  with  white  hairs  on  our  heads,  have  we  found  anything 
else  in  which  the  chase  was  sure  to  result  in  the  capture  ;  in  wliich  capture 
was  sure  to  yield  all  that  the  hunter  had  wished  ?  There  is  only  one  direc- 
tion for  a  man's  desires  and  aims  in  which  disappointment  is  an  impossibility. 
In  all  other  regions  the  most  that  can  be  promised  is,  "Seek,  zxid perhaps 
you  will  find  "  ;  and  when  you  have  found,  perhaps  you  will  find  that  the 
prize  was  not  worth  the  finding.  Or  it  is,  "Seek,  and  possibly  you  may 
find  ;  and  after  you  have  found  and  kept  for  a  little  while,  you  may  lose." 
Though  it  may  be 

"  Better  to  have  loved  and  lost 
Than  never  to  have  loved  at  all," 

a  treasure  that  slips  out  of  our  fingers  is  not  the  best  treasure  that  we  can 
search  for.  But  here  the  assurance  is,  "  Seek,  and  ye  shall  find  ;  and  shall 
never  lose.     Find,  and  you  shall  always  possess." 

What  would  you  think  of  a  company  of  gold-seekers,  hunting  about  in 
some  exhausted  claim  for  hypothetical  grains— ragged,  starving — and  all  the 
while  in  the  next  gulley  were  lying  lumps  of  gold  for  the  picking  up?  And 
that  figure  fairly  represents  what  people  do  and  suffer  who  seek  for  good  and 
do  not  seek  for  God.  That  turning  of  mind,  will,  and  affection  towards 
God  must  be  ours  if  we  are  to  be  among  those  wise  and  happy  seekers  who 
are  sure  to  find  that  which— or  rather  Him  whom — they  seek,  and  to  rest 
in  Him  whom  they  find.  The  famous  saying  which  prefers  the  search  after 
to  the  possession  of  truth  is  more  proud  than  wise  ;  but  the  comparison 
which  it  institutes  is  so  far  true  that  there  is  a  joy  in  the  aspiration  after  and 
the  efforts  towards  truth  only  less  joyous  than  that  which  attends  its  attain- 
ment. But  truth  divorced  from  God  is  finite  and  may  pall,  become  familiar 
and  lose  its  radiance,  like  a  gathered  flower  ;  and  hence  the  preference  for 
the  search  is  intelligible,  though  one-sided.  But  God  does  not  pall,  and  the 
more  we  find  Him  ihe  more  we  delight  in  Him.  The  highest  bliss  is  to  find 
Him,  the  next  highest  is  to  seek  Him  ;  and,  since  seeking  and  finding  Him 
are  never  wholly  separate,  these  kindred  joys  blend  their  lights  in  the 
experience  of  all  His  children. 

288 


THE  REST  OF  FINDING  CHRIST. 

There  I  will  meet  with  thee,  and  I  will  comtnune  with  thee  front  above  the 
mercy-seat. — Exod.  xxv.  22. 

n  *^i.-  IK      Seeking  God  does  not  cover  our  heads  from  the  storm  of 

October  la.  ....  ,  •  t        i     .  i 

external  calamities,  nor  arm  our  hearts  against  the  darts  and 

daggers  of  many  a  pain,  anxiety,  and  care  ;  but  disturbance  around  is  a  very 

small  matter  if  there  be  a  better  thing — rest  within.     Do  you  remember 

who  it  was  that  said,  "  In  the  world  ye  shall  have  tribulation  .  .  .   but  in 

Me  ye  shall  have  peace  "  ?    Then  we  have,  as  it  were,  two  abodes — one,  as 

far  as  regards  the  life  of  sense,  in  the  world  of  sense  —  another,  as  far  as 

regards  the  inmost  self,  which  may,  if  we  will,  be  in  Christ,     A  vessel  with 

an  outer  casing  and  a  layer  of  air  between  may  be  kept  at  a  temperature 

above  that  of  the  external  atmosphere.     So  we  may  have  round  us— and,  if 

God  so  wills,  let  us  not  kick  against  His  will — the  very  opposite  of  repose  ; 

we  may  have  conflict  and  stir  and  strife,  and  yet  a  better  rest  than  that  of 

King  Asa  and  his  people  {see  2  Chron.  xv.  15)  may  be  ours.      *'  Rest  round 

about"  is  sometimes  good  and  sometimes  bad.     It  is  often  bad,  for  it  is  the 

people  that  "  have  no  changes  "  who  most  usually  "  do  not  fear  God."     But 

rest  within,  that  is  sure  to  come  when  a  man  has  sought  with  all  his  desire 

for  God,  whom  he  has  found  in  all  His  fulness,  is  good  only  and  best  of  all. 

We  all  know,  thank  God  !  in  worldly  matters  and  in  inferior  degree, 
how  blessed  and  restful  it  is  when  some  strong  affection  is  gratified,  some 
cherished  desire  fulfilled  !  Though  these  satisfactions  are  not  perpetual,  nor 
perfect,  they  may  teach  us  what  a  depth  of  blessed  and  calm  repose,  in- 
capable of  being  broken  by  any  storms  or  by  any  tasks,  will  come  to  and 
abide  with  the  man  whose  deepest  love  is  satisfied  in  God,  and  whose  most 
ardent  desires  have  found  more  than  they  sought  for  in  Him  !  Be  sure  of 
this,  dear  friend,  that  if  we  do  thus  seek,  and  thus  find,  it  is  not  in  the 
power  of  anything  "that  is  at  enmity  with  joy"  utterly  to  "abolish  or 
destroy"  the  quietness  of  our  hearts.  "  Rest  in  the  Lord,  and  wait  patiently 
for  Him."  They  who  thus  repose  will  have  peace  in  their  hearts,  even 
whilst  tasks  and  temptations,  changes  and  sorrows,  disturb  their  outward 
lives. 

Thus  we  may  have  the  peace  of  God,  rest  in  and  from  Him,  entering 
into  us,  and  in  due  time,  by  His  gracious  guidance  and  help,  we  shall  enter 
into  eternal  rest.  Whilst  to  seek  is  to  find  Him,  in  a  very  deep  and  blessed 
sense,  even  in  this  life  ;  in  another  aspect  all  our  earthly  life  may  be 
regarded  as  seeking  after  Him,  and  the  future  as  the  true  finding  of  Him. 
That  future  shall  bring  to  those  whose  hearts  have  turned  from  the  shows 
and  vanities  of  time  to  God  a  possession  of  Him  so  much  fuller  than  was 
experienced  here  that  the  lesser  discoveries  and  enjoyments  of  Him  which 
are  experienced  here,  scarcely  deserve  in  comparison  to  be  called  by  the 
same  name.  "  He  was  found  of  them,  and  the  Lord  gave  them  rest  round 
about,"  as  well  as  within,  in  the  land  of  peace,  where  sorrow  and  sighing, 
and  toil  and  care,  shall  pass  from  memory ;  and  they  that  warred  against  us 
shall  be  far  away. 

289  U 


THE  SHEPHERD-KING. 

The  Lord  is  my  Shepherd :  I  shall  not  want. — Psalm  xxiii.  I, 

The  king  who  had  been  the  shepherd-bov,  and  had  been 
October  16.  . 

taken  from  the  quiet  sheep-cotes  to  rule  over  Israel,  sings  this 

little  psalm  of  Him  who  is  the  true  Shepherd  and  King  of  men.  We  do 
not  know  at  what  period  of  David's  life  it  was  written,  but  it  sounds  as  if  it 
were  the  work  of  his  later  years.  There  is  a  fulness  of  experience  about  it, 
and  a  tone  of  subdued,  quiet  confidence,  which  speak  of  a  heart  mellowed 
by  years  and  of  a  faith  made  sober  by  many  a  trial.  A  young  man  would 
not  write  so  calmly,  and  a  life  which  was  just  opening  would  not  afford 
material  for  such  a  record  of  God's  guardianship  in  all  changing  circum- 
stances. If,  then,  we  think  of  the  psalm  as  the  work  of  David's  later  years, 
is  it  not  very  beautiful  to  see  the  old  king  looking  back  with  such  vivid  and 
loving  remembrance  to  his  childhood's  occupation,  and  bringing  up  again 
to  memory  in  his  palace  the  green  valleys,  the  gentle  streams,  the  dark 
glens  where  he  had  led  his  flock  in  the  old  days  ;  very  beautiful  to  see  him 
traversing  all  the  stormy  years  ol  warfare  and  rebellion,  of  crime  and  sorrow, 
which  lay  between,  and  finding  in  all  God's  guardian  presence  and  gracious 
guidance?  The  faith  which  looks  back  and  says,  "  It  is  all  very  good,"  is 
not  less  than  that  which  looks  forward  and  says,  "  Surely  goodness  and 
mercy  shall  follow  me  all  the  days  of  my  life."  There  is  nothing  difficult 
of  understanding  in  the  psalm.  The  train  of  thought  is  clear  and  obvious. 
The  experiences  which  it  details  are  common,  the  emotions  it  expresses 
simple  and  familiar.  The  tears  that  have  been  dried,  the  fears  that  have 
been  dissipated,  by  this  old  song  ;  the  love  and  thankfulness  which  have 
ound  in  them  their  best  expression,  prove  the  worth  of  its  simple  words. 
It  lives  in  most  ol  our  memories.  There  is  a  double  progress  of  thought 
in  it.  It  rises,  from  mem(iries  of  the  past  and  experiences  of  the  present 
care  of  God,  to  hope  for  the  future.  "  The  Lord  is  7ny  Shcthcrd^'' — "  / 
will  fear  no  evil."  Then,  besides  this  progress  from  what  was  and  is  to 
what  will  be,  there  is  another  string,  so  to  speak,  on  which  the  gems  are 
threaded.  The  various  methods  of  God's  leading  of  His  flock,  or,  rather, 
we  should  say,  the  various  regions  into  which  He  leads  them,  are  described 
in  order.  These  are  :  Rest,  Work,  Sorrow  ;  and  this  series  is  so  combined 
with  the  order  of  time  already  adverted  to,  as  that  the  past  and  the  present 
are  considered  as  the  regions  of  rest  and  of  work,  while  the  future  is  antici- 
pated as  having  in  it  the  valley  of  he  shadow  of  death. 

290 


GOD   LEADS   HIS   SHEEP   INTO   REST. 

He  niaketh  me  to  lie  down  in  green  pastures ;  He  leadeth  tne  beside  the 
Still  waters. — Psalm  xxiii.  2. 

P  ,  .  .-  It  is  the  hot  noontide,  and  the  desert  lies  bal<ing  in  the 
awful  glare,  and  every  stone  on  the  hills  of  Judaea  burns  the 
foot  that  touches  it.  But  in  that  panting,  breathless  hour,  here  is  a  little 
green  glen,  with  a  quiet  brooklet,  and  a  moist  lush  herbage  all  along  its 
course,  and  great  stones  that  fling  a  black  shadow  over  the  dewy  grass  at 
their  base  ;  and  there  would  the  shepherd  lead  his  flock,  while  the  "sun- 
beams, like  swords,"  are  piercing  everything  beyond  that  hidden  covert. 
Sweet  silence  broods  there.  The  sheep  feed  and  drink,  and  couch  in  cool 
lairs  till  he  calls  them  forth  again.  So  God  leads  Plis  children.  Rest  and 
refreshment  are  putyfrj/,  as  being  the  most  marked  characteristic  of  God's 
dealings.  After  all,  it  is  so.  The  years  are  years  of  unbroken  continuity 
of  outward  blessings.  The  reign  of  afflictions  is  ordinarily  measured  by 
days.  Weeping  endures  for  a  night.  It  is  a  rainy  climate  where  half  the 
days  have  rain  in  them  ;  and  that  is  an  unusually  troubled  life  of  which  it 
can  with  any  truth  be  afflrmed  that  there  has  been  as  much  darkness  as 
sunshine  in  it. 

But  it  is  not  mainly  of  outward  blessings  that  the  Psalmist  is  thinking ; 
they  are  precious  chiefly  as  emblems  of  the  better  spiritual  gifts.  And  it  is 
not  an  accommodation  of  his  words,  but  is  the  appreciation  of  their  truest 
spirit,  when  we  look  upon  them,  as  the  instinct  of  devout  hearts  has  ever 
done,  as  expressing  both  God's  gift  of  temporal  mercies  and  His  gift  of 
spiritual  good,  of  which  higher  gift  all  the  lower  are  meant  to  be  significant 
and  symbolic.  Thus  regarded,  the  image  describes  the  sweet  rest  of  the 
soul  in  communion  with  God,  in  whom  alone  the  hungry  heart  finds 
food  that  satisfies,  and  from  whom  alone  the  thirsty  soul  drinks  draughts 
deep  and  limpid  enough.  This  rest  and  refreshment  has  for  its  conse- 
quence the  restorat'on  of  the  soul,  which  includes  in  it  both  the  invigor- 
ati(m  of  the  natural  life  by  the  outward  sort  of  these  blessings,  and  the 
quickening  and  restoration  of  the  spiritual  life  by  the  inward  feeding  upon 
God  and  repose  in  Him. 

The  Divine  rest  is  not  only  a  pattern  of  what  our  earthly  life  may 
become,  but  is  a  prophecy  of  what  our  heavenly  life  shall  surely  be. 
There  is  a  basis  of  likeness  between  the  Christian  life  on  earth  and  the 
Christian  life  in  heaven,  so  great  as  that  the  blessings  that  are  predicted 
of  the  one  belong  to  the  other.  Only  here  they  are  in  blossom,  sickly 
often,  putting  out  very  feeble  shoots  and  tendrils  ;  and  yonder,  transplanted 
into  their  right  soil,  and  in  their  native  air,  with  heaven's  sun  upon  them, 
they  burst  into  richer  beauty,  and  bring  forth  fruits  of  immortal  life. 
Heaven  is  the  earthly  life  of  a  believer  glorified  and  perfected.  If  here  by 
faith  we  enter  into  the  beginning  of  rest,  yonder,  through  death  with  faith, 
we  shall  enter  into  the  perfection  of  it.  Heaven  will  be  for  us  rest  in 
work,  and  work  that  is  full  of  rest.  Our  Lord's  heaven  is  not  an  idle 
heaven,  and  the  heaven  of  all  spiritual  natures  is  not  idleness.  Man's 
delight  is  activity.  The  loving  heart's  delight  is  obedience.  The  saved 
heart's  delight  is  grateful  service.  The  joys  of  heaven  are  not  the  jo}'S  of 
passive  contemplation,  of  dreamy  remembrance,  of  perfect  repose  ;  but  they 
are  described  thus  :  "They  rest  not  day  nor  night."  "  His  servants  serve 
Him  and  see  His  face."     Heaven  is  perfect  "  rest." 

291 


GOD   GUIDES   KIS   PEOPLE   INTO  V;ORK. 

He  guideth  n^e  in  the  paths  of  righteousness  for  fits  Nantc^s  sake. — 
Psalm  xxiii.  3. 

-  ,  ._  The  quiet  mercies  of  the  precedinj^  verse  are  not  in  thcm- 
**"  '  selves  the  end  of  our  Shepherd's  guidance  ;  they  are  means 
to  an  end,  and  that  is  — work.  Life  is  not  a  fold  for  llie  sheep  to  he  down 
in,  but  a  road  for  them  to  walk  on.  All  our  blessings  of  every  sort  are 
indeed  given  us  for  our  delight.  They  will  never  fit  us  for  the  duties  for 
which  they  are  intended  to  prepare  us,  unless  they  first  be  thoroughly 
enjoyed.  The  highest  good  they  yield  is  only  reached  through  the  lower 
one.  But,  then,  when  joy  fills  the  heart,  and  life  is  bounding  in  the  veins, 
we  have  to  learn  that  these  are  granted,  not  for  pleasure  only,  but  for 
pleasure  in  order  to  power.  We  get  them,  not  to  let  them  pass  away  like 
waste  steam  puffed  into  empty  air,  but  that  we  may  use  them  to  drive  the 
wheels  of  life.  The  waters  of  happiness  are  not  for  a  luxurious  bath  where 
a  man  may  lie,  till,  like  flax  steeped  too  long,  the  very  fibre  be  rotted 
out  of  him  ;  a  quick  plunge  will  brace  him,  and  he  will  come  out  refreshed 
for  work.  Rest  is  to  fit  for  work  ;  work  is  to  sweeten  rest.  All  this  is 
emphatically  true  of  the  spiritual  life  ;  its  seasons  of  communion,  its 
hours  on  the  mount,  are  to  prepare  for  the  sore  sad  work  in  the  plain.  And 
he  is  not  the  wisest  disciple  who  tries  to  make  the  Mount  of  Transfiguration 
the  abiding  place  for  himself  and  his  Lord. 

It  is  not  well  that  our  chief  object  should  be  to  enjoy  the  consolations 
of  religion  ;  it  is  better  to  seek  first  to  do  the  duties  enjoined  by  religion. 
Our  first  question  should  be,  not  "  How  may  I  enjoy  God?"  but  "  How 
may  I  glorify  Him  ?"  "  A  single  eye  to  His  glory  "  means  that  even  our 
comfort  and  joy  in  religious  exercises  shall  be  subordinated,  and,  if  need 
were,  postponed,  to  the  doing  of  His  will.  While,  on  the  one  hand,  there 
is  no  more  certain  means  of  enjoying  Him  than  that  of  humbly  seeking  to 
walk  in  the  ways  of  His  commandments,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is 
nothing  more  evanescent  in  its  nature  than  a  mere  emotion,  even  though  it 
be  that  of  joy  in  God,  unless  it  be  turned  into  a  spring  of  action  for  God. 
Such  emotions,  like  photographs,  vanish  from  the  heart  unless  they  be 
fixed.  Work  for  God  is  the  way  to  fix  them.  Joy  in  God  is  the  strength 
of  work  for  God,  but  work  for  God  is  the  perpetuation  of  joy  in  God. 
Here  is  the  figurative  expression  of  the  great  evangehcal  principle,  that 
works  of  righteousness  must  follow,  not  precede,  the  restoration  of  the  soul. 
We  are  justified,  not  by  works,  but  for  works  ;  or,  as  the  Apostle  puts  it, 
which  sounds  like  an  echo  of  this  psalm,  we  are  "  created  in  Christ  Jesus 
unto  good  works,  which  God  hath  before  ordained  that  we  should  7i  alk  in 
them."  The  basis  of  obedience  is  the  sense  of  salvation.  We  work,  not 
for  the  assurance  of  acceptance  and  forgiveness,  but  fro?n  it.  First  the 
restored  soul  ;  then  the  paths  of  righteousness  for  His  Name's  sake  who 
has  restored  me,  and  restored  me  that  I  may  be  like  Him. 

292 


THE   PATH   OF   SORROW. 

Yea,  though  I  walk  through  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  deaths  I  will 
fear  no  evil;  for  Thou  art  with  me  :  Thy  rod  and  Thy  staff,  they  comfort 
me. — Psalm  xxiii.  4. 

The  "  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death  "  does  not  only  mean  the 

October  19.  r        1        i  ,     i      1    . 

dark  approach  to  the  dark  dissolution  of  soul  and  body,  but  any 

and  every  gloomy  valley  of  weeping  through  which  we  have  to  pass.  Such 
sunless  gorges  we  have  all  to  pass  at  some  time  or  other.  It  is  striking 
that  the  Psalmist  puts  the  sorrow,  which  is  as  certainly  characteristic  of  our 
lot  as  the  rest  or  the  work,  into  the  future.  Looking  back,  he  sees  none. 
Memory  has  softened  down  all  the  past  into  one  uniform  tone,  as  the 
mellowing  distance  wraps  in  one  solemn  purple  the  mountains  which,  when 
close  to  them,  have  many  a  barren  rock  and  gloomy  rift.  All  behind  is 
good.  And,  building  on  this  hope,  he  looks  forward  with  calmness,  and 
feels  that  no  evil  shall  befal.  But  it  is  never  given  to  human  heart  to 
meditate  of  the  future  without  some  foreboding.  And  when  *'  Hope  en- 
chanted smiles,"  with  the  light  of  the  future  in  her  blue  eyes,  there  is  ever 
something  awful  in  their  depths,  as  if  they  saw  some  dark  visions  behind 
the  beauty.  Some  evils  may  come  ;  some  will  probably  come ;  one,  at 
least,  is  sure  to  come.  However  bright  may  be  the  path,  somewhere  on  it, 
perhaps  just  round  that  turning,  sits  the  "shadow  feared  of  man."  So 
there  is  never  pure  In  ope  in  any  heart  that  wisely  considers  the  future.  But 
to  the  Christian  heart  there  may  be  this — the  conviction  that  sorrow,  when 
it  comes,  will  not  be  evil,  because  God  will  be  with  us  ;  and  the  conviction 
that  the  Hand  which  guides  us  into  the  dark  valley  will  guide  us  through 
it  and  up  out  of  it.  Yes,  strange  as  it  may  sound,  the  presence  of  Him  who 
sends  the  sorrow  is  the  best  help  to  bear  it.  The  assurance  that  the  Hand 
which  strikes  is  the  Hand  which  binds  up,  makes  the  stroke  a  blessing, 
sucks  the  poison  out  of  the  wound  of  sorrow,  and  turns  the  rod  which 
smites  into  the  staff  to  lean  on. 

The  sheep  are  led  by  many  a  way,  sometimes  through  sv/eet  meadows, 
sometimes  limping  along  sharp-flinted  dusty  highways,  sometimes  high  up 
over  rough  rocky  mountain-passes,  sometimes  down  through  deep  gorges, 
with  no  sunshine  in  their  gloom  ;  but  they  are  ever  being  led  to  one  place  ; 
and  when  the  hot  day  is  over,  they  are  gathered  into  one  fold,  and  tlie 
sinking  sun  sees  them  safe,  where  no  wolf  can  come,  nor  any  robber  climb 
up  any  more,  but  all  shall  rest  for  ever  under  the  Shepherd's  eye. 

293 


THE  BLIND  WATCHERS  AT  THE   CROSS. 

And  they  sat  and  watched  Him  there. — Matt,   xxvii.  36. 

October  20.  ^^^^  possible  it  is  to  look  at  Christ  on  the  Cross  and  see 
nothing  !  For  half  a  day  there  they  sat.  It  was  but  a  dying  Jew 
that  they  saw — One  of  three.  A  touch  of  pity  came  into  their  hearts  once 
or  twice,  alternating  with  mockery  which  was  not  savage  because  it  was 
simply  brutal  ;  but  when  it  was  all  over,  and  they  had  pierced  His  side, 
and  gone  away  back  to  their  barracks,  they  had  not  the  least  notion  that 
they,  with  their  dim  purblind  eyes,  had  been  looking  at  the  most  stupendous 
miracle  in  the  whole  world's  history  ;  had  been  gazing  at  the  thing  into 
which  angels  desired  to  look  ;  and  had  seen  that  to  which  the  hearts  and 
the  gratitude  of  unconverted  millions  would  turn  for  all  eternity.  They 
laid  their  heads  down  on  their  pillows  that  night  and  did  not  know  what 
had  passed  before  their  eyes  ;  and  they  shut  the  eyes  that  had  served  them 
so  ill,  and  went  to  sleep,  altogether  unconscious  that  they  had  seen  the 
pivot  on  which  the  whole  history  of  humanity  had  turned  ;  and  been  the 
unmoved  witnesses  of  God  manifest  in  the  flesh,  dying  on  the  Cross  for 
the  whole  world,  and  for  them.  And  if  we  thus  look,  and  look  with  calm, 
unmoved  hearts  ;  if  we  look  without  personal  appropriation  of  that  Cross 
and  dying  love  to  ourselves,  and  if  we  look  without  our  hearts  going  out  in 
thankfulness  and  laying  themselves  at  His  feet  in  a  calm  rapture  of  life-long 
devotion,  then  we  need  not  wonder  that  four  ignorant  heathen  men  sat  and 
looked  at  Him  for  four  long  hours  and  saw  nothing,  for  we  are  as  blind  as 
ever  they  were. 

You  say,  "We  see."  Do  you  see?  Do  you  look?  Does  the  look 
touch  your  hearts  ?  Have  you  fathomed  the  meaning  of  the  fact  ?  Is  it  to 
you  the  incarnation  of  the  loving  God  for  your  salvation  ?  Is  it  to  you  the 
death  on  which  all  your  hopes  rest  ?  You  say  you  see.  Do  you  see  that 
in  it  ?  Do  you  see  your  only  ground  of  confidence  and  peace  ?  And  do  you 
so  see  that,  like  a  man  that  has  looked  at  the  sun  for  a  moment  or  two, 
when  you  turn  away  your  head  you  carry  the  image  of  what  you  beheld 
still  stamped  on  your  eyeball,  and  have  it  both  as  a  memory  and  a  present 
impression  ?  So,  is  the  Cross  photographed  on  your  heart  ?  And  is  it  true 
about  us  that  every  day  and  all  days  we  behold  our  Saviour,  and,  beholding 
Him,  are  being  changed  into  His  likeness?  Is  it  true  about  us  that  we 
bear  about  with  us  in  the  body  "the  dying  of  the  Lord  Jesus"?  If  we 
look  to  Ilim  with  faith  and  love,  and  make  His  Cross  our  own,  and  keep 
it  ever  in  our  memory,  ever  before  us  as  an  inspiration  and  a  hope  and  a 
joy  and  a  pattern,  then  we  see.  If  not,  "  for  judgment  am  I  come  into 
the  world,  tl:at  they  which  see  not  may  see,  and  that  they  which  see  might 
be  made  blind,"  For  no  men  are  so  blind  to  the  infinite  pathos  and 
tenderness,  power,  mystery,  and  miracle  of  the  Cross,  as  those  who  all  their 
lives  have  heard  a  Gospel  which  has  been  held  up  before  their  lack-lustre 
eyes,  and  have  looked  at  it  so  long  that  they  cannot  see  it  any  more.  Let 
us  pray  that  our  eyes  may  be  purged  ;  that  we  may  see,  and,  seeing,  may 
copy,  that  dying  love  of  the  ever-loving  Lord. 

294 


"BE   CAREFUL  FOR   NOTHING." 

Be  not  therefore  anxious  for  the  morrow,  for  the  morrow  will  be  anxious 
for  itself — Matt.  vi.  34. 

October  21.  An  apparently  impossible  ad^^ce.  That  word  "careful,"  in  a 
great  many  places  in  the  New  Testament,  does  not  mean  what 
it  has  come  to  mean  to-day  ;  but  it  means  what  it  should  still  mean,  "  lull 
of  care."  And  "care"  meant,  not  prudent  provision,  forethought,  the 
occupation  of  a  man's  common  sense  with  his  duty  and  his  work  and  his 
circumstances,  but  it  meant  the  thing  which  of  all  others  unfits  a  man  most 
for  such  prudent  provision,  and  that  is,  the  nervous  irritation  of  a  gnawing 
anxiety  which,  as  the  word  in  the  original  means,  tears  the  heart  apart  and 
makes  a  man  quite  incapable  of  doing  the  wise  thing,  or  seeing  the  wise 
thing  to  do,  in  the  circumstances.  "Careful"  here  means  neither  more 
nor  less  than  "  anxious." 

But  even  with  that  explanation,  is  it  not  like  an  unreachable  ideal 
that  Paul  puts  forward  ?  "Be  anxious  about  nothing."  How  can  a  man 
who  has  to  face  the  possibilities  that  we  all  have  to  face,  and  who  knows 
himself  to  be  as  weak  to  deal  with  them  as  we  all  are — how  can  he  help 
being  anxious  ?  There  is  no  more  complete  waste  of  breath  than  those  sage 
and  reverend  advices  which  people  give  us,  not  to  do  the  thin^^s  nor  to 
feel  the  emotions  which  our  position  make  absolutely  inevitable  and  almost 
involuntary.  Here,  for  instance,  is  a  man  surrounded  by  all  manner  of 
calamity  and  misfortune  ;  and  some  well-meaning,  but  foolish,  friend  comes 
to  him,  and,  without  giving  him  a  single  reason  for  the  advice,  says,  "  Cheer 
up,  my  friend  ! "  Why  should  he  cheer  up  ?  What  is  there  in  his  circum- 
stances to  induce  him  to  fall  into  any  other  mood  ?  Or  some  unquestionable 
peril  is  staring  him  full  in  the  face,  coming  nearer  and  nearer  to  him,  and 
some  well-meaning,  loose-tongued  friend,  says  to  him,  "  Do  not  be  afraid  !  " 
But  he  ought  to  be  afraid.  That  is  about  all  that  worldly  wisdom  and 
morality  have  to  say  to  us  when  we  are  in  trouble  and  anxiety.  "  Shut 
your  eyes  very  hard,  and  make  believe  very  much,  and  you  will  not  fear." 
An  impossible  exhortation  !  Just  as  well  bid  a  ship  in  the  Bay  of  Biscay 
not  to  rise  and  fall  upon  the  wave,  but  to  keep  an  even  keel — ^just  as  well 
tell  the  willows  in  the  river-bed  that  they  are  not  to  bend  when  the  wind 
blows — as  come  to  me,  and  say  to  me,  "  Be  careful  about  nothing,"  unless 
you  have  a  great  deal  more  than  that  to  say.  I  must  be,  and  I  ought  to  be, 
anxious  about  a  great  many  things.  Instead  ot  anxiety  being  folly,  it  will 
be  wisdom  ;  and  the  folly  will  consist  in  not  opening  our  eyes  to  facts,  and 
in  not  feeling  emotions  that  are  appropriate  to  the  facts  which  force  them- 
selves against  our  eyeballs.  Threadbare  maxims,  stale,  musty  old  common- 
places of  unavailing  consolation  and  impotent  encouragement  say  to  us, 
"  Do  not  be  anxious."  We  try  to  stiffen  our  nerves  and  muscles  in  order 
to  bear  the  blow  ;  or  some  of  us,  more  basely  still,  get  into  a  habit  of 
feather-headed  levity,  making  no  forecasts,  nor  seeing  even  what  is  plainest 
before  our  eyes.  But  all  that  is  of  no  use  when  once  the  hot  pincers  of 
real  trouble,  impending  or  arrived,  lay  hold  of  our  hearts.  Then,  of  all  idle 
expenditures  of  breath  in  the  world,  there  is  none  to  the  wrung  heart  more 
idle  and  more  painful  than  the  one  that  says.  Be  anxious  about  nothing. 

295 


HOW  TO   OBEY  AN   APPARENTLY   IMPOSSIBLE 
INJUNCTION. 

In  nothing  be  anxious ;  but  in  everything  by  prayer  and  supplication 
ZL'iih  thanksgiving  let  your  requests  be  made  known  unto  God. — Phil.  iv.  6. 

October  22  Paul  here  directs  to  the  mode  of  feeling  and  action  which 
will  give  exemption  from  the  else  inevilable  gnawing  of 
anxious  forethought.  He  introduces  his  positive  counsel  with  an  eloquent 
"  But,"  which  implies  that  what  follows  is  the  sure'prescrvutive  against  the 
temper  which  he  deprecates.  "  But  in  everything  by  prayer  and  suppli- 
cation with  thanksgiving  let  your  requests  be  made  known  unto  God." 

There  are,  then,  these  alternatives.  If  you  do  not  like  to  take  the  one, 
you  are  sure  to  have  to  take  the  other.  There  is  only  one  way  out  of  the 
wood,  and  it  is  this  which  Paul  expands  in  these  last  words.  If  a  man 
does  not  pray  about  everything,  he  will  be  worried  and  anxious  about  most 
things.  If  he  does  pray  about  everything,  he  will  not  be  troubled,  beyond 
what  is  good  for  him,  about  anything.  So  there  are  these  alternatives  ; 
and  we  have  to  make  up  our  mintls  which  of  the  two  we  are  going  to  take. 
The  heart  is  never  empty.  If  not  full  of  God,  it  will  be  full  of  the  world 
and  of  worldly  care.  Luther  says  somewhere  that  a  man's  heart  is  like  a 
couple  of  millstones  ;  if  you  do  not  put  something  between  them  to  grind, 
they  will  grind  each  other.  It  is  because  God  is  not  in  our  hearts  that  the 
two  stones  rub  the  surJace  off  one  another  So  the  victorious  antagonist  of 
anxiety  is  trust,  and  the  only  way  to  turn  gnawing  care  out  of  my  heart  and 
life  is  to  usher  God  into  it.  and  to  keep  Him  resolutely  in  it. 

'*'  In  everything."  If  a  thing  is  great  enough  to  threaten  to  make  me 
anxious,  it  is  great  enough  for  me  to  talk  to  God  about.  If  He  and  I  are 
on  a  friendly  footing,  the  instinct  of  friendship  will  make  me  speak.  If  so, 
how  irrelevant  and  superficial  seem  to  be  discussions  whether  we  ought  to 
pray  about  worldly  things  or  confine  our  prayers  entirely  to  spiritual  and 
religious  matters  !  Why  !  if  God  and  I  are  on  terms  of  friendship  and 
intimacy  of  communication,  there  will  be  no  question  as  to  what  I  am  to 
talk  about  to  Him ;  I  sliall  not  be  able  to  keep  silent  as  to  anything  that 
interests  me.  And  we  are  not  right  with  God  unless  we  have  come  to  that 
point.  That  entire  openness  of  speech  marks  our  communications  with  Him  ; 
and  that  as  naturally  as  men,  when  they  come  from  business,  like  to  tell 
their  wives  and  children  what  has  liajjpened  to  them  since  they  left  home 
in  the  morning,  so  naturally  we  talk  to  our  PViend  about  everything  that 
concerns  us.  "  In  everything  let  your  requests  be  made  known  unto 
God."  That  is  the  wise  course,  becai/se  a  multitude  of  little  pimples  may 
be  quite  as  painful  and  dangerous  as  a  large  ulcer.  A  cloud  of  gnats  may 
IHit  as  much  poison  into  a  man  with  their  many  stings  as  will  a  snake  with 
its  one  bite.  And  if  we  are  not  to  get  hclj)  from  God  by  telling  Him  about 
little  things,  there  will  be  very  little  of  our  lives  that  we  shall  tell  Him 
about  at  all.  For  life  is  a  mountain  made  up  of  minute  flakes.  The  years 
arc  only  a  collection  of  seconds.  Every  man's  life  is  an  aggregate  of  trifles. 
"In  everything  make  your  requests  known." 

296 


THE  CURE   FOR  ANXIETY. 

Casting  all  your  anxiety  upon  Him,  because  He  careth  for  you. — 
I  Peter  v.  7- 

'"'By   prayer":  that   does   not   mean,    as  a   superficial   ex- 
October  23.  .      ^     \      ,.  .       .  .  ^ 

penence   of  religion  is  apt  to  suppose  it    to   mean,    actual 

petition  that  follows.  For  a  great  many  of  us  the  only  notion  that  we 
have  of  prayer  is  asking  God  to  give  us  something  that  we  want.  But 
there  is  a  far  higher  region  of  communion  than  that,  in  which  the  soul 
seeks  and  finds,  and  sits  and  gazes,  and  aspiring  possesses,  and  possessing 
aspires.  Where  there  is  no  spoken  petition  for  anything  affecting  outward 
life,  there  may  be  the  prayer  of  contemplation  such  as  the  burning  seraphs 
before  the  Throne  do  ever  glow  with.  The  prayer  of  silent  submission,  in 
which  the  will  bows  itself  before  God  ;  the  prayer  of  quiet  trust,  in  which 
we  do  not  so  much  seek  as  cleave  ;  the  prayer  of  still  fruition, — these,  in 
Paul's  conception  of  the  true  order,  precede  ''supplication."  And  if  we 
have  such  union  with  God,  by  realising  His  presence,  by  aspiration  after 
Plimself,  by  trusting  Him  and  submission  to  Him,  then  we  have  the 
victorious  antagonist  of  all  our  anxieties,  and  the  "cares  that  infest  the 
day  shall  fold  their  tents"  and  *' silently  steal  away."  For  if  a  man  has 
that  union  with  God  which  is  effected  by  such  prayer  as  I  have  been 
describing,  it  gives  him  a  fixed  point  on  which  to  rest  amidst  all  per- 
turbations. It  is  like  bringing  a  light  into  a  chamber  when  thunder  is 
growling  outside,  which  prevents  the  flashing  of  the  lightning  from  being 
seen. 

Years  ago  an  ingenious  inventor  tried  to  build  a  vessel  in  such  a  fashion 
as  that  the  saloon  for  passengers  should  remain  upon  one  level,  howsoever 
the  hull  might  be  tossed  by  waves.  It  was  a  failure,  if  I  remember  rightly. 
But  if  we  are  thus  joined  to  God,  Pie  will  do  for  our  inmost  hearts  what  the 
inventor  tried  to  do  with  the  chamber  within  his  ship.  The  hull  may  be 
buffeted,  but  the  inmost  chamber  where  the  true  self  sits  will  be  kept 
levelled  and  unmoved.  Brother  !  prayer  in  the  highest  sense,  by  which  I 
mean  the  exercise  of  aspiration,  trust,  submission — prayer  will  fight  against 
and  overcome  all  anxieties. 

"  By  prayer  and  supplication."  Actual  petition  lor  the  supply  of  present 
wants  is  meant  by  ' '  supplication."  To  ask  for  that  supply  will  very  often 
be  to  get  it.  To  tell  God  what  I  think  I  need  goes  a  long  way  always  to 
bringing  me  the  gift  that  I  do  need.  If  I  have  an  anxiety  of  which  I  am 
ashamed  to  speak  to  Him,  that  silence  is  a  sign  that  I  ought  not  to  have  it ; 
and  if  I  have  a  desire  that  I  do  not  feel  I  can  put  into  a  prayer,  that 
feeling  is  a  warning  to  me  not  to  cherish  such  a  desire. 

297 


THANKSGIVING  AN   ANTIDOTE   OF   CARE. 

/  will  sacrifice  unto  Thee  with  the  voice  of  thanksgiving. — Jonah  ii.  9. 

There  are  many  varue  and  oppressive  anxieties  that  come 
October  24.  ,  1     ,  /it 

and  cast  a  shadow  over  our  hearts,  that,  ir  we  could  once 

define  and  put  into  plain  Vv'ords,  we  should  find  that  we  vaguely  fancied 

them  a  great  deal  larger  than  they  were,  and  that  the  shadow  they  flung 

was  immensely  longer  than  the  thing  that  flung  it.     Put  your  anxieties  into 

definite  speech.     It  will  reduce  their  proportions  to  your  own  apprehension 

very  often.     Speaking  them,  even  to  a  man  who  may  be  able  to  do  little  to 

help,  eases  them  wonderfully.     Put  them  into  definite  speech  to  God,  and 

there  are  very  few  of  them  that  will  survive. 

"  By  prayer  and  supplication  with  thanksgiving."  That  thanksgiving 
is  always  in  place.  If  one  only  considers  what  he  has  from  God,  and 
realises  that  whatever  he  has  he  has  received  from  the  hands  of  Divine 
love,  thanksgiving  is  appropriate  in  any  circumstances.  Do  you  remember 
when  Paul  was  in  gaol  at  the  very  city  to  which  this  letter  (Phihppians) 
went,  with  his  back  bloody  with  the  rod  and  his  feet  fast  in  the  stocks, 
how  then  "he  and  Silas  prayed  and  sang  praises  to  God"  ?  Therefore  the 
obedient  earthquake  came  and  set  them  loose.  Perhaps  it  was  some 
reminiscence  of  that  night  which  moved  him  to  say  to  the  church  that  knew 
the  story — of  which  perhaps  the  gaoler  was  still  a  member — "  By  prayer  and 
supplication  with  thanksgiving  make  your  requests  known  unto  God." 

One  aching  nerve  can  monopolise  our  attention  and  make  us  uncon- 
scious of  the  health  of  all  the  rest  of  the  body  ;  so,  a  single  sorrow  or  loss 
obscures  many  mercies.  We  are  like  men  that  live  in  a  narrow  alley  in 
some  city,  with  great  buildings  on  either  side  towering  high  above  their 
heads,  and  only  a  strip  of  sky  visible.  If  we  see  up  in  that  strip  a  cloud, 
we  complain  and  behave  as  if  the  whole  heavens,  right  away  round  the 
three  hundred  and  sixty  degrees  of  the  horizon,  were  black  with  tempest. 
But  we  see  only  a  little  strip,  and  there  is  a  great  deal  of  blue  in  the  sky  ; 
however,  there  may  be  a  cloud  in  the  patch  that  we  see  above  our  heads, 
from  the  alley  where  we  live.  Everything,  rightly  understood,  that  Ciod 
sends  to  men  is  a  cause  of  thanksgiving;  therefore,  "in  everything  by 
prayer  and  supplication  with  thanksgiving  let  your  requests  be  made  known 
unto  God." 

"  Casting  all  your  anxieties  upon  Him,"  says  Peter,  "  for  He  " — not  is 
anxiotis ;  that  dark  cloud  does  not  rise  much  above  the  earth— but,  "Pie 
careth  fur  you."  And  that  loving  guardianship  and  tender  care  is  the  one 
shield,  armed  with  which  we  can  smile  at  the  poisoned  darts  of  anxiety 
which  would  else  fester  in  our  hearts  and,  perhaps,  kill.  "  Be  careful  for 
nothing" — an  impossibility  unless  "in  everything"  we  make  "our  re- 
quests known  unto  God." 

298 


A   FATHER'S   DISCIPLINE. 

For  they  verily  for  a  few  days  chastened  us  as  seemed  good  to  them;  but 
He  for  our  profity  that  we  may  be  partakers  of  His  holiness. — Heb.  xii.  lO. 

0  t  be  25  Few  words  of  Scripture  have  been  oftener  than  these  laid  as 
a  healing  bahai  on  wounded  hearts.  They  may  be  long 
unnoticed  on  the  page,  like  a  lighthouse  in  calm  sunshine  ;  but  sooner  or 
la.ter  the  stormy  night  falls,  and  then  the  bright  beam  flashes  out  and  is 
welcome.  They  go  very  deep  into  the  meaning  of  life  as  discipline.  They 
tell  us  how  much  better  God's  discipline  is  than  that  of  the  most  loving 
and  wise  of  parents ;  and  they  give  that  superiority  as  a  reason  for  cur 
yielding  more  entire  and  cheerful  obedience  to  Him  than  we  do  to  such. 

Now,  to  grasp  the  full  meaning  of  these  words,  we  have  to  notice  that 
the  earthly  and  the  heavenly  disciplines  are  described  in  four  contrasted 
clauses,  which  are  arranged  in  what  students  call  inverted  parallelism — • 
that  is  to  say,  the  first  clause  corresponds  to  the  fourth,  and  the  second  to 
the  third.  "For  a  few  days"  pairs  off  with  "that  we  might  be  partakers 
of  His  holiness."  Now,  that  does  not  seem  a  contrast  at  first  sight;  but 
notice  that  the  "for"  in  the  former  clause  is  not  the  "for"  of  duration, 
but  of  direction.  It  does  not  tell  us  the  space  during  which  the  chastise- 
ment or  discipHne  lasts,  but  the  end  towards  v/hich  it  is  pointed.  Tlie 
earthly  parent's  discipline  trains  boy  or  girl  for  circumstances,  pursuits, 
occupations,  professions,  all  of  which  terminate  with  the  brief  span  of  life. 
God's  training  is  for  an  eternal  day.  It  would  be  quite  irrelevant  to  bring 
in  here  any  reference  to  the  length  of  time  during  which  an  earthly  father's 
discipline  lasts,  but  it  is  in  full  consonance  with  the  writer's  intention  to 
dwell  upon  the  limited  scope  of  the  one  and  the  wide  and  eternal  purpose 
of  the  other.  Then,  as  for  the  other  contrast — "for  their  own  pleasure," 
or,  as  the  Revised  Version  reads  it,  "as  seemed  good  to  them" — "but  He 
for  our  profit."  Elements  of  personal  peculiarity,  whim,  passion,  limited 
and  possibly  erroneous  conceptions  of  what  is  the  right  thing  to  do  for  the 
child,  enter  into  the  training  of  the  wisest  and  most  loving  amongst  us  ; 
and  we  often  make  a  mistake  and  do  harm  when  we  think  we  are  doing 
good.  But  God's  training  is  all  from  a  simple  and  unerring  regard  to  the 
benefit  of  His  child.  God  corrects,  chastens,  trains,  educates.  That  is 
the  deepest  word  about  everything  that  befals  us.  All  which  befals  us 
has  a  will  behind  it,  and  is  co-operant  to  an  end.  Life  is  not  a  heap  of 
unconnected  incidents,  like  a  number  of  links  flung  down  on  the  ground, 
but  the  links  are  a  chain,  and  the  chain  has  a  staple.  It  is  not  a  law  with- 
out a  law-giver  that  shapes  men's  lives.  It  is  not  a  blind  impersonal 
chance  that  presides  over  it.  Why  !  these  very  meteors  that  astronomers 
expect  to-night  to  be  filing  and  flashing  through  the  sky  in  apparent  wild 
disorder,  all  obey  law.  Our  lives,  in  like  manner,  are  embodied  thoughts 
of  God's,  in  as  far  as  the  incidents  which  befal  in  them  are  concerned. 
We  may  mar,  may  fight  against,  may  contradict  the  prciiiding  Divine 
purpose  ;  but  yet,  behind  the  wild  dance  of  flashing  and  transitory  lights 
that  go  careering  all  over  the  sky,  there  guides,  not  an  impersonal  Power, 
but  a  living,  loving  Will.  He,  not  it ;  He,  not  r/iey—merx,  circumstances, 
what  people  call  second  causes— .^^  corrects,  and  He  does  it  for  a  great 
purpose. 

299 


THE  SAINTS'   PUPILAGE. 

Give  instruction  to  a  wise  man,  and  he  will  be  yet  wiser ;  teach  a  righteous 
man,  and  he  will  increase  in  learning. — Prov.  ix.  9. 

October  26.  The  world  is  God's  nursery.  There  are  many  mansions  in 
the  Father's  house ;  and  this  is  where  He  keeps  the  little 
ones.  That  is  the  true  meaning  of  everything  that  befals  us.  It  is 
education.  It  would  not  be  worth  doing  at  all  if  it  were  not.  Life  is 
given  to  us  to  teach  us  how  to  live,  to  exercise  our  powers,  to  give  us 
habits  and  facilities  of  working.  We  are  like  boys  in  a  training-ship  that 
lies  for  most  of  the  time  in  harbour,  and  now  and  then  goes  out  upon  some 
short  and  easy  cruise,  not  for  the  sake  of  getting  anywhere  in  particular, 
but  for  the  sake  of  exercising  the  lads  in  seamanship.  There  is  no  meaning 
worthy  of  tis — to  say  nothing  of  God—in  anythmg  that  we  do,  unless  it  is 
looked  upon  as  schooling.  We  all  say  we  believe  that.  Alas  !  I  am  afraid 
very  many  of  us  forget  it. 

But  that  conception  of  the  meaning  of  each  event  that  befals  us  carries 

with  it  the  conception  of  the  whole  of  this  life  as  being  an  education  towards 

another.     I  do  not  understand  how  any  man  can  bear  to  live  here,  and  to 

do  all  his  painful  work,  unless  he  thinks  that  by  it  he  is  getting  ready  for 

the  life  beyond;  and  that  "nothing  can  bereave  him  of  the  force  that  he 

made  his  own,  being  here."     The  rough  ore  is  turned  into  steel  by  being 

"  Plunged  into  baths  of  hissing  tears, 
And  heated  all  v.ith  hopes  ar.d  f-ars, 
And  battered  with  the  shocks  of  doom." 

And  then — what  then  ?  Is  an  instrument  thus  fashioned  and  tempered  and 
polished  destined  to  be  broken  and  "thrown  as  rubbish  into  the  void"? 
Certainly  not  !  If  this  life  is  education,  as  is  obvious  upon  its  very  face, 
then  there  is  a  place  where  we  shall  exercise  the  facilities  that  we  have 
acquired  here,  and  manifest  in  loftier  forms  the  characters  which  we  have 
made  our  own. 

If  we  carry  these  thoughts  with  us  habitually,  what  a  difference  it  will 
make  upon  everything  that  befals  us  !  You  hear  men  often  maundering 
and  murmuring  about  the  mysteries  of  the  pain  and  sorrow  and  suffering  of 
this  world,  wondering  if  there  is  any  loving  will  behind  it  all.  That 
perplexed  questioning  goes  on  the  hypothesis  that  life  is  meant  mainly  for 
enjoyment  or  for  material  good.  If  we  once  apprehended  in  its  all- 
applicable  ranges  this  simple  truth,  that  life  is  a  discipline,  we  should  have 
less  difficulty  in  understanding  what  people  call  the  mysteries  of  Providence. 
I  do  not  say  it  would  interpret  everything,  but  it  would  interpret  an  immense 
deal.  It  would  make  us  eager,  as  each  event  came,  to  find  out  its  special 
mission,  and  what  it  was  meant  to  do  for  us.  It  would  dignify  trifles,  and 
bring  down  the  overwhelming  magnitude  of  the  so-called  great  events,  and 
would  make  us  lords  of  ourselves,  and  lords  of  circumstances,  and  ready  to 
wring  the  last  drop  of  possible  advantage  out  of  each  thing  that  befel  us. 
Life  is  a  Father's  discipline. 

300 


THE  GUIDING   PRINCIPLE   OF   CHRISTIAN   DISCIPLINE. 

All  chastening  seemeth  for  the  present  to  be  not  joyous^  but  grievous  ;  yet 
afterward  it  yieldeth  peaceable  fruit  unto  theyn  that  have  been  exercised 
thereby. — Heb.  xii.  II. 

«  ^  ,     «-      I  HAVE  already  said  that,  even  in  the  most  wise  and  unselfish 
October  27.  .    .        ,  •'         ^^_^  ^     ^\  -n       •      i         i  •     .• 

training  by  an  earthly  parent,  there  will  mingle  subjective 

elements,  pecuharitics  of  view  and  thought,  and  sometimes  of  passion  and 
whim  and  other  ingredients,  which  detract  from  the  value  of  all  such 
training.  The  guiding  principle  for  each  earthly  parent  can  only  be  his 
conception  of  what  is  for  the  good  of  his  child,  even  at  the  best ;  and 
oftentimes  that  is  not  purely  the  guide  by  which  the  parent's  disciphne  is 
directed.  So  the  words  (Heb.  xii.  lo)  turn  us  away  from  all  these  incom- 
pletenesses, and  tell  us,  *' He  for  our  profit" — with  no  sidelong  look  to 
anything  else,  and  with  an  entirely  wise  knowledge  of  what  is  for  our  good, 
so  that  the  result  will  be  always  and  only  for  our  good.  This  is  the  point  of 
view  from  which  every  Christian  man  ought  to  look  upon  all  that  befals  him. 

What  follows?  This,  plainly  :— there  is  no  such  thing  as  evil  except 
the  evil  of  sin.  All  that  comes  is  f^ood,  of  various  sorts  and  various 
complexions,  but  all  generically  the  same.  The  inundation  comes  up  over 
the  fields,  and  men  are  in  despair.  It  goes  down  ;  and  then,  like  the  slime 
left  from  the  Nile  in  flood,  there  is  better  soil  for  the  cultivation  of  our 
fields.  Storms  keep  sea  and  air  from  stagnating.  All  that  men  call  evil, 
in  the  material  world,  has  in  it  a  soul  of  good.  If  it  be  that  all  my  hfe  is 
paternal  discipline,  and  that  God  makes  no  mistakes,  then  I  can  embrace 
whatever  comes  to  me,  and  be  sure  that  in  it  I  shall  find  that  which  will  be 
for  my  good. 

Ah  !  it  is  easy  to  say  so  when  things  go  well ;  but,  surely,  when  the 
night  falls  is  the  time  for  the  stars  to  shine.  The  gracious  word  should 
shine  upon  some  of  us  in  to-day's  perplexities  and  pains  and  disappoint- 
ments and  sorrows — "  He  for  our  profit."  That  great  thought  does  not  in 
the  least  deny  the  fact  that  pain  and  sorrow  and  so-called  evil  are  very 
real.  There  is  no  false  stoicism  in  Christianity.  The  mission  of  our 
troubles  would  not  be  effected  unless  they  did  trouble  us.  The  good  that 
we  get  from  a  sorrow  Avould  not  be  realised  unless  we  did  sorrow.  "Weep 
for  yourselves,"  said  the  Master,  "and  for  your  children."  It  is  right  that 
we  should  writhe  in  pain.  It  is  right  that  we  should  yield  to  the  impressions 
that  are  made  upon  us  by  calamities  ;  but  it  is  not  right  that  we  should  be 
so  affected  as  that  we  should  fail  to  discern  in  them  this  gracious  thought — 
"for  our  profit."  God  sends  us  many  love-tokens,  and  amongst  them  are 
the  great  and  the  little  annoyances  and  pains  that  beset  our  lives;  and  on 
each  of  them,  if  we  would  look,  we  should  see,  written  in  His  own  hand, 
this  inscription  :  "  For  your  good."  Do  not  let  us  have  our  eyes  so  full  of 
tears  that  we  cannot  see,  or  our  hearts  so  full  of  regrets  that  we  cannot 
accept,  that  sweet,  strong  message.  The  guiding  principle  of  all  that 
befals  us  is  God's  unerring  knowledge  of  what  will  do  us  good.  That  will 
not  prevent,  and  is  not  meant  to  prevent,  the  arrow  from  wounding,  but 
it  does  wipe  the  poison  off  the  arrow,  and  diminish  the  pain,  and  should 
diminish  the  tears. 

301 


THE  AIM   OF  ALL  GOD'S   CORRECTION. 

Whom  the  Lord  loveth  He  chasteneih,  and  scourgeth  every  son  whom  lie 
receiveth. — Heb.  xii,  6. 

October  28  ^^^'  ^^''^^b'  Parent  trains  his  son,  or  her  daughter,  for 
earthly  occupations.  These  last  a  little  while.  God  trains 
us  for  an  eternal  end.  Holiness,  likeness  to  God,  is  the  only  end  which 
it  is  worthy  of  a  man,  being  what  he  is,  to  propose  to  himself  as  the  issue 
of  his  earthly  experience.  If  I  fail  in  that,  whatever  else  I  have  accom- 
plished, I  fail  in  everything.  I  may  have  made  myself  rich,  cultured, 
learned,  famous,  refined,  prosperous  ;  but  if  I  have  not  at  least  begun  to 
be  like  God  in  purity,  in  will,  in  heart,  then  my  whole  career  has  missed 
the  purpose  for  which  I  was  made,  and  for  which  all  the  discipline  of 
life  has  been  lavished  upon  me.  Fail  there,  and  wherever  you  succeed 
you  are  a  failure.     Succeed  there,  and  wherever  you  fail  you  are  a  success. 

That  great  and  only  worthy  end  may  be  reached  by  the  ministration  ot 
circumstances  and  the  discipline  through  which  God  passes  us.  These 
are  not  the  only  ways  by  which  He  makes  us  partakers  of  His  holiness,  as 
we  well  know.  There  is  the  work  of  that  Divine  Spirit  who  is  granted 
to  every  believer  to  breathe  into  him  the  holy  breath  of  an  immortal  and 
incorruptible  life.  To  work  along  with  these  there  is  the  influence  that 
is  brought  to  bear  upon  us  by  the  circumstances  in  which  we  are  placed 
and  the  duties  which  we  have  to  perform.  These  may  all  help  us  to  be 
nearer  and  liker  to  God. 

That  is  the  intention  of  our  sorrows.  They  will  wean  us  ;  they  wall 
refine  us  ;  they  will  blow  us  to  His  breast,  as  a  strong  wind  might  sweep 
a  man  into  some  refuge  from  itself.  I  am  sure  there  are  some"  who  can 
thankfully  attest  that  they  were  brought  nearer  to  God  by  some  short, 
sharp  sorrow  than  by  many  long  days  of  prosperity. 

But  the  sorrow  that  is  meant  to  bring  us  nearer  to  Him  may  be  in  vain. 
The  same  circumstances  may  produce  opposite  effects.  I  daresay  there 
are  people  who  will  read  these  words  who  have  been  made  hard  and  sullen 
and  bitter  and  paralysed  for  good  work  because  they  have  some  heavy 
burden  to  carry,  or  some  wound  or  ache  that  life  can  never  heal.  Ah  I 
brother,  we  are  often  like  shipwrecked  crews,  of  whom  some  are  driven 
by  the  danger  to  their  knees,  and  some  are  driven  to  the  spirit  casks. 
Take  care  that  you  do  not  waste  your  sorrows  ;  that  you  do  not  let  the 
precious  gifts  of  disappointment,  pain,  loss,  loneliness,  ill-health,  or  similar 
afflictions  that  come  in  your  daily  liie,  mar  you  instead  of  mending  you. 
See  that  they  send  you  nearer  to  God,  and  not  that  they  drive  you  further 
from  Him.  See  that  they  make  you  more  anxious  to  have  the  durable 
riches  and  righteousness  which  no  man  can  take  from  you,  than  to  grasp 
at  what  may  yet  remain  of  fleeting  earthly  joys.  So  let  us  try  to  school 
ourselves  into  the  habitual  and  operative  conviction  that  life  is  discipline. 
Let  us  beware  of  getting  no  good  from  what  is  charged  to  the  brim  with 
good.  May  it  never  have  to  be  said  of  any  of  us  that  we  wasted  the  mercies 
which  were  judgments,  too,  and  found  no  good  in  the  things  that  our 
tortured  hearts  felt  to  be  also  evils,  lest  God  should  have  to  wail  over  any 
of  us,  "  In  vain  have  I  smitten  your  children  ;  they  have  received  no 
correction." 

302 


THE  CHARGE  TO  THE  TEMPLE  WATCHERS. 

Behold,  bless  ye  the  Lord,  all  ye  servants  of  the  Lord,  which  by  night 
stand  in  the  House  of  the  Lord  !  Lift  up  your  hands  to  the  Sanctuary,  and 
bless  ye  the  Lord.  The  Lord  bless  thee  out  of  Zion,  even  He  that  made 
heaven  and  earth. — PsALM  cxxxiv.  I-3. 

-  ,  ,      --      Figure  to  yourself  the  band  of  white-robed  priests  gathered 
in  the  court  of  the  Temple,  their  flashing  torches  touching 
pillar  and  angle  with  strange  light,  the  city  sunk  in  silence  and  sleep — and 
ere  they  part  to  their  posts  the  chant  rung  in  their  ears  : 

"  Behold  !  bless  ye  the  Lord, 
All  ye  servants  of  the  Lord, 
Who  by  night  stand  in  the  House  of  the  Lord, 
Lift  up  your  hands  to  the  Sanctuary, 
And  bless  the  Lord." 

The  priests'  duty  is  to  praise.  It  is  because  they  are  the  servants  of 
the  Lord  that,  therefore,  it  is  their  business  to  bless  the  Lord.  It  is 
because  they  stand  in  the  House  of  the  Lord  that  it  is  theirs  to  bless  the 
Lord.  They  who  are  gathered  into  His  House,  they  who  hold  communion 
with  Him,  they  who  can  feel  that  the  gate  of  the  Father's  dwelling,  like 
the  gate  of  the  Father's  heart,  is  always  open  to  them,  they  who  have  been 
called  in  from  their  wanderings  in  a  homeless  wilderness,  and  given  a 
place  and  a  name  in  His  House  better  than  of  sons  and  daughters,  have 
been  so  blessed  in  order  that,  filled  with  thanksgiving  for  such  an  entrance 
into  God's  dwelling  and  of  such  an  adoption  into  His  family,  their  silent 
lips  may  be  filled  with  thanksgiving  and  their  redeemed  hands  be  uplifted 
in  praise.  So  for  us  Christians.  We  are  servants  of  the  Lord — His  priests. 
That  we  "stand  in  the  House  of  the  Lord"  expresses  not  only  the  fact 
of  our  great  privilege  of  confiding  approach  to  Him  and  communion  vdth 
Him,  whereby  we  may  ever  abide  in  the  very  Holy  of  Holies,  and  be  in 
the  secret  place  of  the  Most  High,  even  while  we  are  busy  in  the  world  ; 
but  it  also  points  to  our  duty  of  ministering — for  the  word  "stand"  is 
employed  to  designate  the  attendance  of  the  priests  in  their  ofiice,  and  is 
almost  equivalent  to  "  serve."  The  purpose  of  that  full  horn  of  plenty, 
charged  with  blessings  which  God  has  emptied  upon  our  heads,  is  that 
our  dumb  lips  may  be  touched  into  thankfulness,  because  our  selfish 
hearts  have  been  wooed  and  charmed  into  love  and  life. 

The  rabbis  had  a  saying  that  there  were  two  sorts  of  angels  :  the 
angels  that  served,  and  the  angels  that  praised  ;  of  which,  according  to 
their  teaching,  the  latter  were  the  higher  in  degree.  It  was  only  a  half- 
truth,  for  true  service  is  praise.  But  whatever  the  form  in  which  praise  may 
come,  whether  it  be  in  the  form  of  vocal  thanksgiving,  or  whether  it  be  the 
glad  surrender  of  the  heart,  manifested  in  the  conscious  discharge  of  the 
most  trivial  duties  ;  whether  we  lift  up  our  hands  in  the  Sanctuary,  and 
"  bless  the  Lord  "  with  them,  or  whether  we  turn  our  hands  to  the  tools  of 
our  daily  o  cupation  and  handle  them  for  His  sake  ; — alike  we  may  be 
praising  Him.  And  the  thing  for  us  to  remember  is  that  the  place  where 
we,  if  we  are  Christians,  stand,  and  the  character  which  we,  if  we  are 
Christians,  sustain,  bind  us  to  live  blessing  and  praising  Him  whilst 
we  live. 

303 


SERVICE  AND   COMMUNION. 

IVhoso  offereth  the  sacrifice  of  thanksgiving  glorifieth  Me ;  and  to  him 
that  ordcreth  his  conversation  aright  will  I  show  the  salvation  of  God. 
— Psalm  1.  23. 

Q  ,  ,  „-  It  is  not  enough  to  patrol  the  temple  courts  unless  we  "  lift 
up  our  hands  to  the  Sanctuary,"  and  with  our  hearts  "bless 
the  Lord."  And  all  we  who  in  any  degree  and  any  department  are  officially 
or  seini-ofticially  connected  with  the  work  of  the  Christian  Church  have 
very  earnestly  and  especially  to  lay  this  to  heart.  We  ministers,  deacons, 
Sunday-school  teacliers,  tract  distributors,  have  much  need  to  take  care 
that  we  do  not  confound  watching  in  the  courts  of  the  temple  with  lifting 
up  our  own  hands  and  hearts  to  our  Father  that  is  in  Heaven,  and  remember 
that  the  more  outward  work  we  do  the  more  inward  Hie  we  ought  to  have. 
The  higher  the  stem  of  the  tree  grows,  and  the  broader  its  branches  spread, 
the  deeper  must  strike  and  the  wider  must  extend  its  underground  roots,  if 
it  is  not  to  be  blown  over  and  become  a  withered  ruin. 

And  so  will  you  take  the  plain  lesson  that  is  here  :  all  5'e  that  stand 
ready  for  service,  and  doing  service,  all  "  ye  that  stand  in  the  House  of  the 
Lord,  behold" — your  peril  and  your  duty — and  "bless  ye  the  Lord. 
And  remember  that  the  more  work  the  more  prayer  to  keep  it  from  rotting  ; 
the  more  effort  the  more  communion  ;  and  that  at  the  end  we  shall  discover 
with  alarm,  and  wii.h  shame  confess,  "  I  kept  others'  vineyards,  and  my 
own  vineyards  have  I  not  kept "  ;  unless,  like  our  Master,  we  prepare  for 
a  day  of  work  and  toil  in  the  temple  by  a  night  of  quiet  communion  with 
our  Father  on  the  mountain-side. 

And  then  there  is  another  lesson,  and  that  is  that  all  times  are  times 
for  blessing  God.  "  Ye  who  by  night  stand  in  the  House  of  the  Lord, 
bless  the  Lord."  So,  though  no  sacrifice  was  smoking  on  the  altar,  and  no 
choral  songs  went  up  from  the  company  of  praising  priests  in  the  ritual 
service,  and  although  the  nightfall  had  silenced  the  worship  and  scattered 
the  worshippers,  yet  some  low  murmur  of  praise  would  be  echoing  through 
the  empty  halls  all  the  night  long,  and  the  voice  of  thanksgiving  and  of 
blessing  would  blend  with  the  clank  of  the  priests'  feet  on  the  marble 
pavements  as  they  went  their  patrolling  rounds  ;  and  their  torches  would 
send  up  a  smoke  not  less  acceptable  than  the  wreathing  columns  of  the 
incense  that  had  filled  the  day.  And  so,  as  in  some  convents  you  will 
find  a  monk  kneeling  on  the  steps  of  the  altar  at  each  hour  of  the  four- 
and-twenty,  adoring  the  Sacrament  exposed  upon  it,  so  (but  in  inmost 
reality  and  not  in  a  mere  vulgar  outside  form  that  means  nothing)  in  the 
Christian  heart  there  should  be  a  perpetual  adoration  and  a  continual 
praise — a  prayer  without  ceasing.  What  is  it  that  ct)mes  first  of  all  into 
your  minds  when  you  wake  in  the  middle  of  the  night  ?  Yesterday's 
business,  to-morrow's  vanities,  or  God's  present  love  and  your  dependence 
upon  Ilim? 

In  the  night  of  sorrow,  too,  do  our  songs  go  up,  and  do  we  hear  and 
obey  the  charge  which  commands  not  only  perpetual  adoration,  but  bids 
us  fill  the  night  with  music  and  with  praise?  Well  for  us  if  it  be,  antici- 
pating the  time  when  "  they  rest  not  day  nor  night  saying.  Holy  !  Holy  1 
Holy  I" 

304 


RECIPROCAL  BLESSING. 

/  will  bless  thee  .  .  .  and  be  thou  a  blessing. — Gen.  xii.  2. 

0  f  h  31  There  are  two  kinds  of  blessing  which  answer  to  one 
another — God's  blessing  of  man  and  man's  blessing  of  God. 
The  one  is  communicative,  the  other  receptive  and  responsive.  The  one 
is  the  great  streism  which  pours  itself  over  the  precipice,  the  other  is  the 
basin  into  which  it  falls,  and  the  showers  of  spray  which  rise  from  its 
surface,  rainbowed  in  the  sunshine,  as  the  cataract  of  Divine  mercies  comes 
down  upon  it.  God  blesses  us  when  He  gives.  We  bless  God  when  we 
thankfully  take,  and  praise  the  Giver.  God's  blessing,  then,  must  ever 
come  first.  We  love  Him  because  Pie  first  loved  us.  Ours  is  but  the 
echo  of  His;  but  the  ackno\\ ledgment  of  the  Divine  act,  which  must 
precede  our  recognition  of  it,  as  the  dawn  must  come  in  order  that  the  birds 
may  wake  to  sing. 

Our  highest  service  is  to  take  the  gifts  of  God,  and  with  glad  hearts  to 
praise  the  Giver.  Our  blessings  are  but  words.  God's  blessings  are 
realities.  We  wish  good  to  one  another  when  we  bless  each  other.  But 
He  does  good  to  men  when  He  l:)]e>;ses  them.  Our  wishes  may  be  deep 
and  warm,  but,  alas  !  how  ineffectual  ;  they  flutter  round  the  heads  of 
those  whom  we  would  bless,  but  how  seldom  do  they  actually  rest  upon 
their  brows  !  But  God's  blessings  are  powers  ;  they  never  miss  their 
mark.  Whom  He  blesses  are  blessed  indeed.  The  channel  through 
which  God's  blessings  come  is — "out  of  Zion."  For  the  Jew,  the  fulness  of 
the  Divine  glory  dwelt  between  the  Cherubim,  and  the  richest  of  the 
Divine  blessings  were  bestowed  on  the  waiting  worshippers  there.  And  no 
doubt  it  is  still  true  that  God  dwells  in  Zion,  and  blesses  men  from  thence. 
The  correspondence  in  Christianity  to  the  temple  where  God  dwelt  and 
from  which  He  scattered  His  blessings  is  twofold — one  proper  and  original, 
the  other  secondary  and  derived.  In  the  true  sense,  Jesus  Christ  is  the 
Temple.  In  Him  God  dwelt  ;  in  Him  man  meets  God  ;  in  Him  was  the 
place  of  Revelation  ;  in  Him  the  place  of  Sacrifice.  "  In  this  place  is  one 
greater  than  the  temple";  and  the  abiding  of  Jehovah  above  the  mercy-seat 
was  but  a  material  symbol,  shadowing  and  foretelling  the  true  indwelling  of 
all  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead  bodily  in  that  true  tabernacle  which  the 
Lord  hath  pitched  and  not  man.  So  the  great  P'ountain  of  all  possible 
good  and  benediction,  which  was  opened  for  the  believing  Jew  in  "  Zion," 
is  open  for  us  in  Jesus  Christ,  who  stood  in  the  very  court  of  the  temple, 
and  called  in  tones  of  clear,  loud  invitation  :  "  If  any  man  thirst,  let  him 
come  unto  Me  and  drink."  W^e  may  each  pass  through  the  rent  veil  into 
the  holiest  of  all,  and  there,  laying  our  hand  on  Jesus,  touch  God.  and 
opening  our  empty  palm  extended  to  Him,  can  receive  from  Him  all  the 
blessing  that  we  need.  There  is  another  application  of  the  temple  symbol 
in  the  New  Testament — a  derivative  and  secondary  one — to  the  Church, 
that  IS,  to  the  aggregate  of  behevers.  In  that  Zion  all  God's  best  blessings 
are  possessed  and  stored,  that  the  Church  may,  by  faithful  service,  impart 
them  to  the  world.  Whosoever  desires  to  possess  these  blessings  must 
enter  thither,  not  by  any  ceremonial  act  or  outward  profession,  but  by 
becoming  one  of  those  who  put  their  whole  heart's  confidence  in  Jesus 
Christ.  If  we  are  knit  to  Christ  by  our  faith,  we  share,  in  proportion  to  our 
fai<th,  in  all  the  wealth  of  blessing  with  which  God  has  blessed  Him,  We 
possess  Christ  and  in  Him  all. 

505  X 


CHRISTIAN   SELF-POSSESSION. 

This  is  the  will  of  God,  even  your  sanctiJicaUon,  .  .  .  that  each  one, of 
you  know  how  to  possess  himself  of  his  own  vessel  in  sanctification  and 
honour. — i  Thess.  iv.  3,  4. 

J-  ,  .  Self-control  is  self-possession,  as  the  popular  use  of  that 
word  "self-possessed"  hints  at.  A  man  that  has  the 
mastery  of  his  inclinations,  dispositions,  emotions,  and  passions,  and  can 
keep  them  all  down  where  they  ought  to  be,  is  the  man  whom  we  call 
**  self-possessed" — which  is  just  to  say,  that  only  he  who  governs  himself 
by  temperate  reason  and  firm  will  and  pure  conscience,  only  he  is,  in 
truth,  his  own  owner  and  master.  Why,  to  take  one  of  the  plainest  and 
grossest  instances :  suppose  a  drunkard  who  resolves,  with  all  the  power 
left  to  his  enfeebled  \\\\\,  that  he  will  never  touch  drink  again.  He  goes 
out  into  the  street  full  of  his  resolution,  and  before  he  has  gone  a  couple  of 
hundred  yards,  and  passed  a  public-house  or  two,  it  all  oozes  out  at  his 
fingers'  ends,  and  in  he  goes.  Is  he  master  of  himself?  Does  he  own 
himself,  in  any  true  sense  of  the  expression  ?  No  !  That  tyrannous  lust 
dominates ;  to  it  he  belongs  ;  he  has  no  power  of  governing  his  own 
nature.  His  reason,  his  will,  his  conscience,  are  all  drowned  out  of  sight 
by  the  flood  of  ungoverned  passion  that  comes  rushing  from  his  indulged 
animal  appetite  like  winter  torrents  from  the  recesses  of  the  hills,  that  cover 
fertile  lands  with  hideous  slime  and  sterile  gravel.  You  cannot  call  such  a 
man  as  that  his  own  master.  To  use  a  common  phrase,  he,  at  any  rate, 
cannot  call  his  soul  his  own.  It  belongs  to  the  tempter  whom  he  cannot 
resist.  That,  of  course,  is  an  illustration  of  an  extreme  kind,  drawn  from 
a  gross  appetite,  but  the  principle  involved  in  it  can  be  applied  to  other 
much  more  refined  and  subtle  desires.  Wherever  there  is  a  passion,  an 
inclination  that  masters  a  man,  and  brushes  aside  the  sovereign  faculties  of 
reason  and  will  and  conscience,  and  says  to  them,  "You  may  all  lay  your 
heads  together  as  you  like,  but  I  am  going  to  take  the  reins  into  my  hands," 
there  is  a  man  who  does  not  belong  to  himself,  but  to  the  dominant  in- 
clination and  to  the  object  which  excites  it. 

Self-sacrifice  is  self-possession.  From  a  selfish  point  of  view,  it  is  a 
gross  mistake  to  make  myself  my  own  aim  and  centre.  "  Who  pleasure 
follows,  pleasure  slays,"  says  the  poet.  The  surest  way  to  gratify  and 
satisfy  all  that  is  good  in  myself  is  to  put  the  satisfaction  of  self  out  of  sight, 
and  to  yield  myself  up  to  something  higher  and  nobler.  They  tell  us  that 
if  a  man  gazes  full-front  at  the  Pleiades  they  do  not  appear  so  bright,  and 
he  cannot  count  so  many  of  them  as  if  he  looks  a  little  on  one  side  of  them. 
Whoever  makes  self  the  aim  of  his  vision  and  of  his  effort  thereby  defeats 
his  own  end,  and  ceases  to  possess  himself.  There  are  far  sweeter  delights 
in  the  love  of  others,  to  which  a  man  yields  up  himself,  than  are  ever  found 
in  loving  self.  The  poignant  joys  that  spring  in  a  heart  that  is  inflamed  by 
high  enthusiasm  for  any  great  cause,  be  it  what  it  may,  are  nobler,  rarer, 
more  tlnilling  by  far,  than  any  which  are  to  be  found  on  the  low  levels  of 
self-indulgence.  The  secret  of  hnppiness  is  self-oblivion.  "He  that 
loveth  his  life  shall  lose  it ''  is  true  all  round  the  circumference  of  a  man's 
nature. 

:o6 


A  BETTER  AND  AN  ENDURING  SUBSTANCE. 

Knowing  that  ye  yourselves  have  a  better  possession   and  an  abiding 
one, — Heb.  X.  34. 

November  2.  '^^^  writer  has  just  spoken  in  the  previous  clause  about 
"  taking  joyfully  the  spoiling  of  your  goods"  and  for  "  posses- 
sion" he  employs  a  word  closely  related  to  that,  which  is  translated 
"goods."  So  that  he  is  pointing  back,  and  suggesting  that  the  wealth 
that  had  been  taken  was  trivial  and  poor  in  comparison  with  the  wealth 
which  the  believing  Hebrews  retained.  They  had  lost  farthings  ;  they  had 
kept  pounds. 

That  possession  is  better,  just  because  it  is  within  and  not  without. 
The  wealth  that  a  man  has  is  only  apparently  his  possession.  There  is 
many  a  man  in  Manchester  about  whom  we  say,  "  He  has  mills  or  capital 
amounting  to  so  many  thousands,  or  millions,"  when  it  would  be  a  great 
deal  truer  to  say,  "The  mills  and  the  capital  and  the  millions  have  hnn." 
He  is  not  their  owner  ;  he  is  their  slave.  But  even  when  outward  posses- 
sions do  not  become  tyrants,  it  is  still  true  that  whatever  lies  outside  of  us 
is  less  precious  than  what  we  have  within.  Love  is  more  than  money  ; 
peace  is  more  than  plenty.  It  is  better  to  have  a  quiet  heart  than  a  full 
cupboard.  It  is  better  to  have  a  clear  record  of  conscience  than  a  bank- 
note with  a  heavy  balance  on  the  credit  side.  What  we  have,  or  what  has 
us,  is  small  in  comparison  with  what  we  are.  The  wealth  within  is  the 
true  wealth  ;  and  there  is  nothing  that  will  satisfy  a  man  except  having 
himself  re-made  after  the  image  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  so  being  "  lord  of 
himself  if  not  of  lands."  The  difference  between  these  two  kinds  of  posses- 
sion is  the  difference  between  having  to  go  a  weary  way  to  a  well  with  a 
pitcher,  and  bringing  back  a  scanty  and  not  very  pure  or  cool  supply,  and 
having  a  fountain  in  your  courtyard.  "  A  good  man  shall  be  satisfied  from 
himself,"  says  the  Book  of  Proverbs  ;  and  that  is  better  than  being  a 
pauper  dependent  on  the  contingent  satisfactions  that  come  from  anything 
outside  of  us. 

"A  better  and  an  enduring  possession  " — or,  perhaps,  we  should  rather 
say,  better  because  enduring.  Nothing  can  deprive  me  of  myself  but  myself. 
Only  its  own  hands  can  break  the  sweet  bonds  that  knit  a  believing  soul 
to  Jesus  Christ.  The  world  may  blow  its  fiercest  hurricanes  of  losses,  and 
sorrows  may  come  storming  upon  us,  but  they  will  only  blow  the  dead 
leaves  off  the  tree,  while  the  living  ones  remain,  and  the  strong  bole  and 
sturdy  branches  are  unharmed.  The  branches  may  toss  ;  the  stem  and  the 
roots  are  unmoved.  So  it  is  better  to  have  wealth  which  the  world  cannot 
give  and  cannot  take  away  than  to  be  enriched  with  all  the  fast-fading 
sweets  that  it  offers. 

This  wealth  is  better  because  it  is  altogether  unaffected  by  and  per- 
sistent through  that  change  which  takes  away  everything  besides.  As  the 
grim  psalm  has  it,  "his  glory  shall  not  descend  after  him,"  As  the  grim 
proverb  has  it,  "Shrouds  have  no  pockets."  The  corpse  laid  out  upon  a 
board  to  be  buried  has  the  hands  that  clutched  straightened  out,  open  and 
empty  for  evermore.  But  we  take  ourselves  with  us  when  we  go — what 
we  have  made  of  ourselves,  and  what  Christ  in  us  has  made  of  us. 
"  Blessed  are  the  dead  that  die  in  the  Lord,  for  .  .  .  their  works  do  follow 
them,"  and  their  wealth  goes  with  them. 

■^1 


THE  MISSION  OF  PERSECUTION. 

Ye  both  had  compassion  on  them  that  were  in  bonds,  and  took  iqyfully 
the  s/)oi/in£^  o/your  possessions.  — Heb.  x.  34. 

The  possession  of  the  enduring  substance  of  Christ  lifts  us 
above  all  loss  or  change.  *' Ye  \.oo\^  joyfully  the  spoiling  of 
your  goods,"  says  the  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  speaking  to  his 
hearers  of  some  afflictions  and  persecutions  which  have  long  faded  out  of 
memory.  We  know  not  what  the  circumstances  were  to  which  he  refers. 
Evidently  there  had  been  some  pretty  stringent  and  severe  persecution  of 
Christians,  which  had  led  to  large  financial  losses.  "  Ye  took  joyfully  the 
spoihng  of  your  goods."  How  came  it  that  they  were  so  turned  about  from 
man's  usual  attitude  as  to  welcome  what  most  people  resist,  or  at  least 
regret?  How  came  it?  Why — "knowing  that  ye  had  yourselves  for  a 
better  and  an  enduring  possession."  It  does  not  matter  much  to  the  man 
that  has  vaults  on  vaults  full  of  sacks  of  bullion  whether  a  few  shillings  may 
be  lost  in  the  course  of  a  day's  work.  It  does  not  matter  much  to  the 
merchant  wl  o  has  his  warehouse  piled  with  goods  though  one  or  two  day's 
transactions  may  be  unprofitable.  And  if  we  have  the  durable  riches  in  the 
possession  of  our  own  selves,  we  can  afford  to  look — and  we  shall  look — 
with  comparatively  quiet  hearts  on  the  going  of  all  that  can  go,  and  be  able 
to  bear  losses  and  sorrows,  and  '*  all  the  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to,"  in  an 
altogether  different  fashion  from  what  we  should  do  if  we  could  not  fall 
back  upon  the  wealth  within,  and  feel  that  nothing  can  touch  that. 

If  we  rightly  understood  the  mission  of  loss,  pain,  or  sorrow,  and  that 
each  was  intended  to  make  us  possess  more  fully  the  only  true  riches — that 
each  was  meant  to  make  us  better,  more  masters  of  ourselves,  and  enriched 
by  such  possession— we  should  not  so  often  murmur  or  faint  when  the  blows 
come,  nor  be  so  ready  to  exclaim,  "Oh!  the  mysteries  of  Providence!" 
but  rather  be  quick  to  say,  "  All  things  work  together  for  good  to  them 
that  love  God."  For,  if  my  "loss"  of  outward  things  makes  me  "gain" 
in  patience,  in  refinement,  in  fixed  faith  in  Jesus  Christ,  in  quiet  submission 
to  Him,  then  I  enter  the  item  on  the  wrong  page  if  I  put  it  upon  the 
"  losses"  side  of  the  book.  I  should  put  it  on  the  "profits"  side  ;  for  it 
profits  a  man  more  to  gain  himself  than  to  gain  or  keep  the  whole  world. 

So  the  right  understanding  of  what  our  wealth  is,  and  the  right  under- 
standing of  the  relation  of  sorrow  and  pain  and  loss  to  the  true  wealth  in 
ourselves,  would  make  us  not  only  take  patiently,  but  "joyfully,"  all  pos- 
.sible  disaster  and  loss.  And  we  may  come  to  reproduce  that  heroism  of 
glad  faith  which  the  old  prophet  showed  when  he  sang,  "Though  the  fig- 
tree  shall  not  blossom,  and  there  be  no  fruit  in  the  vine  ;  though  the  labour 
of  the  olive  shall  fail,  and  there  be  no  meat  in  the  field  ;  though  the  flock 
be  cut  off  from  the  fold,  and  there  be  no  herd  in  the  stall,  yet  shall  I  rejoice 
in  the  Lord,  and  joy  in  the  God  of  my  salvation." 

308 


THE  DIVINE  HOST  AND  THE  HUMAN  GUESTS 

Thou  preparest  a  table  before  me  in  the  presence  of  fiiine  enemies  ;  Thou 
hast  anointed  my  head  with  oil ;  my  cup  runneth  over. — Psalm  Kxiii.  5. 

Life  is  a  sore  fight ;  but  to  the  Christian  man,  in  spite  of  all 
Ifovember  4.  ^^^  tumult,  life  is  a  festal  banquet.  There  stand  the  enemies, 
ringing  him  round  with  cruel  eyes,  waiting  to  be  let  slip  upon  him  like 
eager  dogs  round  the  poor  beast  of  the  chase.  But,  for  all  that,  here  is 
spread  a  table  in  the  wilderness,  made  ready  by  invisible  hands  ;  and  the 
grim-eyed  foe  is  held  back  in  the  leash  till  the  servant  of  God  has  fed  and 
been  strengthened.  This  is  our  condition — always  the  foe,  always  the 
table.  What  sort  of  a  meal  should  that  be  ?  The  soldiers  who  eat  and 
drink,  and  are  drunken  in  the  presence  of  the  enemy,  like  the  Saxons 
before  Hastings,  what  will  become  of  them  ?  Drink  the  cup  of  gladness, 
as  men  do  when  their  foe  is  at  their  side,  looking  askance  over  the  rim, 
and  with  one  hand  on  the  sword,  ready,  aye  !  ready,  against  treachery  and 
surprise.  But  the  presence  of  the  danger  should  make  the  feast  more 
enjoyable,  too,  by  the  moderation  it  enforces  and  by  the  contrast  it  affords 
— as  to  sailors  on  shore,  or  soldiers  in  a  truce.  Joy  may  grow  on  the  very 
face  of  danger,  as  a  slender  rose-bush  flings  its  bright  sprays  and  fragrant 
blossoms  over  the  lip  of  a  cataract ;  and  that  not  the  wild  mirth  of  men  in 
a  pestilence,  with  their  "  Let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die,"  but 
the  simple-hearted  gladness  of  those  who  have  preserved  the  invaluable 
childhood  gift  of  living  in  the  present  moment,  because  they  know  that  to- 
morrow will  bring  God,  whatever  it  brings,  and  not  take  away  His  care  and 
love,  whatever  it  takes  away. 

This,  then,  is  the  form  under  which  the  experience  of  the  past  is  pre- 
sented in  the  second  portion  of  this  Shepherd -psalm — joy  in  conflict,  rest 
and  food  even  in  the  strife.  Upon  that  there  is  built  a  hope  which  trans- 
cends that  in  the  previous  portion  of  the  psalm.  As  to  this  life,  '*  Goodness 
and  mercy  shall follo^u  us  "  This  is  more  than  ^^ I ivill fear  no  evil"  That 
said.  Sorrow  is  not  evil  if  God  be  with  us.  This  says.  Sorrow  is  mercy. 
The  one  is  hope  looking  mainly  at  outward  circumstances  ;  the  other  is 
hope  learning  the  spirit  and  meaning  of  them  all.  These  two  angels  of 
God — Goodness  and  Mercy— shall  follow  and  encamp  around  the  pilgrim. 
The  enemies  whom  God  held  back  while  he  feasted  may  pursue,  but  will 
not  overtake  him.  They  will  be  distanced  sooner  or  later  ;  but  the  white 
wings  of  these  messengers  of  the  covenant  shall  never  be  far  away  from  the 
journeying  child,  and  the  air  shall  often  be  filled  with  the  music  of  their 
comings,  and  their  celestial  M'eapons  shall  glance  around  him  in  all  the  fight, 
and  their  soft  arms  shall  bear  him  up  over  all  the  rough  ways,  and  up  higher 
at  last  to  the  throne. 

309 


THE   LONELINESS   OF   CHRIST. 

Behold,  the  hour  cometh,  yea,  is  cotne,  that  ye  shall  be  scattered^  every 
man  to  his  own,  and  shall  leave  Ale  alone ;  and  vet  I  am  not  alone,  because 
the  Father  is  with  Ale. — JoHN  xvi.  32. 

November  5  THAT  is  not  the  aspect  ot  our  Lord's  sorrows,  the  element 
of  our  Lord's  Passion,  which  is  most  often  dealt  with  and 
thought  about  ;  but  it  is  a  very  real  one,  and  one  that  I  think  deserves  to 
be  far  more  considered  than  we  are  in  the  habit  of  doing.  Attention  has 
been  too  exclusivcl}'  directed  to  the  physical  sufferings  of  our  Lord's  Passion, 
and  to  the  mysterious  element  in  His  mental  passion  which  made  it  unique 
and  atoning.  We  have  too  much  forgotten  the  sorrows  which  pressed  upon 
Him  as  upon  us,  the  same  in  kind,  only  infinitely  deeper  in  degree,  and 
hence  we  have  lost  some  of  the  sense  of  reality  of  our  Lord's  sufferings  of 
these  sorrows.  I  do  not  know  that  any  is  more  sharp  than  the  solitude  in 
which  He  lived  and  yet  more  awful  solitude  in  which  Pie  died.  Jesus 
Christ  was  the  loneliest  man  that  ever  lived.  A  little  ignorant  love  and  a 
little  outward  companionship  Pie  had  ;  and  soothing  and  strengthening  it 
was  to  be  surrounded  by  the  affection  even  of  such  ignorant  friends  as  the 
disciples.  But  there  was  not  a  single  human  being  who  fully  understood 
or  believed  Him.  There  were  none  who  sympathised  with  His  aims,  none 
v/ho  could  receive  His  confidences.  His  thoughts  were  unshared,  His 
words  unintelligible,  Plis  life's  purpose  shrouded  in  mystery.  "  He  came 
to  His  own,  and  His  own  received  Plim  not."  "  His  soul  was  as  a  star,  and 
dwelt  apart."  And  so  He  travelled  on,  bearing  a  great  burden  of  love 
which  none  would  accept  ;  the  loneliest  soul  that  ever  wore  human  flesh. 

All  great  spirits  are  solitary  ;  the  men  that  lead  the  world  have  to  go 
before  the  world,  and  to  go  by  themselves.  Starlings  fly  in  flocks,  the 
eagle  soars  singly.  And  so  the  pages  of  the  biographies,  teachers  and 
religious  reformers,  and  thinkers  and  path-breakers  generally,  tell  us  of  the 
pains  of  uncomprehended  aims,  of  the  misery  of  living  apart  from  one's 
kind,  of  the  agony  of  hungering  for  sympathy,  for  comprehension,  for 
acceptance  of  a  truth  which  dooms  its  possessors  to  isolation.  But  all  that 
men  have  experienced  in  that  kind  is  as  nothing  as  compared  with  the 
blackness  of  darkness  which  the  loneliness  of  Jesus  Christ  assumed  as  it 
settled  dov/n  upon  Plim. 

Let  me  remind  you  what  it  was  thfit  condemned  Plim  to  this  absolute 
loneliness.  It  was  the  very  purity  and  sinlessness  of  His  nature  v/hich 
necessarily  made  Him  separate  from  sinners.  Pie  saw  eternal  things  as  no 
other  e^.-e  saw  them,  and  His  vision  of  land,  where  others  saw  only  cloud, 
parted  Him  from  them. 

He  read  men  as  no  other  eye  read  them  :  He  saw  not  only  the  clock-face, 
but  the  springs.  He  looked  upon  the  flesh  and  behind  the  spirit,  its  inmost 
essence,  its  destiny  and  end.  Before  His  human  eye  there  stood  pl.i.'nly 
ntanifested  the  pale  kingdoms  of  the  dead,  and  all  that  vision  separated 
Him  from  men.  The  children  on  the  street  used  to  point  at  Dante  as  he 
yiassed,  saying,  "  There  goes  the  man  that  has  seen  hell,"  and  to  shrink 
from  him  as  if  he  carried  his  own  atmosphere  in  which  others  could  not 
breathe.  But  the  equal  vision  which  Christ  had  of  all  things,  of  all  men, 
■of  all  worlds,  made  His  life  an  aljsolute  solitude  ;  and  when  He  spake  that 
He  knew,  and  testified  what  He  had  seen,  no  man  received  His  testimony. 
Hence  came  a  deeper  loneliness. 


LIFE'S   ISOLATIONS. 

I  have  trodden  the  winepress  alone. — IsA.  Ixiii.  3. 

«•  V  g  The  very  things  that  made  the  solitude  of  Christ  made  its 
agony.  The  same  characteristics  in  Jesus  Christ  which 
separated  Him  from  men  made  Him  feel,  as  no  other  man  ever  felt,  the 
pain  and  bitterness  of  being  so  separated.  Other  men  wear  an  armour  of 
selfishness  and,  alas  !  of  procHvity  to  evil  which  makes  it  less  of  a  torture  to 
be  brought  close  to  it.  But  He  stood  with  bared  breast,  and  every  blow 
struck  full  home.  Christ  was  lonely  in  the  midst  of  crowds.  It  would  have 
been  so  much  easier  for  Him  to  have  come  neither  eating  nor  drinking  ;  or 
like  John  the  Baptist,  to  have  gone  into  the  desert  and  lived  an  ascetic  life 
of  outward  solitude  there.  But  that  could  not  be.  He  must  be  kindly 
with  His  kind.  He  had  to  live  the  life  which  was  to  be  every  man's 
pattern  and  inspiration.  So  He  must  enter  into  all  common  relationships, 
and  hallow  ordinary  duties  and  scenes  by  Himself  passing  through  them. 
Therefore  He  came  eating  and  drinking,  and  sat  at  feasts  where  there  was 
no  love  and  scant  courtesy,  and  kept  company  with  men,  the  very  associa- 
tion with  whom  was  a  deeper  soHtude  than  He  would  have  found  in  the 
dreariest  wilderness. 

Christ's  loneliness  deepened  as  the  end  drew  near.  The  disciples 
understood  Him  even  less  when  He  spoke  about  His  death  than  in  the  rest 
of  His  teaching.  He  had,  in  a  very  special  sense,  to  go  down  into  the 
valley  alone.  Death  is  ever  a  solitude,  and,  perhaps,  is  most  terrible  be- 
cause it  is.  The  fondest  love  can  only  go  with  us  to  the  gate.  We  must 
part  outside  the  barrier,  and  all  alone  pass  in  and  take  our  journey.  But 
His  death,  compassed  by  treachery,  and  preceded  by  the  flight  of  His 
friends  and  the  denial  of  His  chief  apostle,  was,  in  a  very  special  sense,  a 
solitary  death.  The  little  faith  which  had  feebly  been  building  itself  up  in 
some  hearts  was  shattered.  The  love  seemed  to  have  gone.  No  man 
in  all  the  world  believed  in  Him  now.  "We  trusted"  was  the  most  they 
would  say.  And  so,  wrapped  in  darkness.  He  dies,  as  He  had  lived,  alone  ! 
How  profoundly  must  our  Lord  have  felt  the  pain  of  His  solitude  !  The 
thought  of  His  loneliness  is  made  more  bitter  to  Him  by  its  contrast  with 
the  companionship  which  His  faithless  followers  so  easily  secured.  "  Ye 
shall  be  scattered,  each  one  to  his  own."  They  had  all  congenial  surround- 
ings and  friends  to  return  to,  and,  fleeing  to  that  shelter,  they  leave  Him 
solitary,  hke  a  traveller,  on  a  waste  unsheltered  heath,  to  meet  the  whole 
fury  of  the  storm.  ''Bis  own,"  to  whom  He  had  come  with  hands  out- 
stretched craving  a  welcome,  had  turned  from  Him,  and  the  isolation 
aggravated  even  the  solemn  pains  of  His  test  passion. 

The  piteous  petition  that  came  from  His  lips  in  Gethsemane  reveals 
this  :  "  My  soul  is  exceeding  sorrowful,  even  unto  death.  Tarry  ye  here 
and  watch  with  Me."  Even  the  company  of  these  three,  who  understood 
so  little,  and  the  imperfection  of  whose  love  He  saw  so  plainly,  was  a  kind 
of  solace.  And  when  even  that  poor  staff  broke  as  he  leaned  upon  it,  pain 
as  well  as  wonder  spoke  in  the  gentle  remonstrance,  "  Could  ye  not  watch 
with  Me  one  hour  ? "  Lonely  and  hungering  for  human  companionship. 
He  entered  into  the  agony  and  fought  His  last  fight  for  us  all  that  we  might 
not  fight  it  alone. 

311 


CHRIST'S   VOLUNTARY   SUFFERINGS. 

Therefore  doth  the  Father  love  Me,  because  I  lay  doivn  My  life,  that  I 
may  take  it  again.  No  one  taketh  it  away  frovyi  Me,  but  I  lay  it  down  of 
Myself. — ^JoHN  x.  17,  18. 

ITovember  7.  "^^^  ^^^^  suffering  and  solitude  of  Christ  were  voluntarily  en- 
dured, and  tliat  for  us.  All  man's  sorrow  He  experienced. 
Every  ingredient  that  adds  bitterness  to  our  cup  was  familiar  to  His  taste, 
ind  He  tasted  them,  as  He  tasted  death,  "for  every  man,"  that  His  ex- 
perience of  them  might  make  them  less  hard  for  us  to  bear,  and  that  the 
touch  of  His  lips  lingering  on  the  cup  might  sweeten  the  draught  for  us. 

His  endurance  of  this,  as  of  all  the  sorrows  of  human  life,  was  at  every 
moment  a  fresh  act  of  willing  surrender  of  Himself  for  us.  He  wore  our 
manhood  and  Fie  bore  manhood's  griefs,  not  because  He  must,  but  because 
He  would.  He  willed  to  be  born.  He  willed  to  abide  in  the  flesh.  He 
willed,  pang  by  pang,  to  bear  our  sorrows.  He  could  have  ended  it  all. 
But  His  love  held  Him  here.  That  was  the  cord  which  bound  Him  to  the 
stake.  His  enemies  were  wiser  than  they  knew,  when  they  mocked  at 
Flim,  and  said  He  saved  others — and  precisely,  therefore — Himself  He 
cannot  save.  So  all  that  drear  solitude  in  which  He  groped  for  a  hand  to 
grasp  and  found  none  was  voluntarily  borne  and  was  as  truly  a  part  of  His 
bearing  the  consequences  of  man's  sin,  as  when  He  bowed  His  head  to 
death,  and,  therefore,  to  be  gazed  on  by  us  with  thankfulness  as  an  element 
in  the  suffering  wherewith  He  has  redeemed  us. 

These  thoughts  may  encourage  us  all  to  bear  the  necessary  isolation  of 
life,  and  in  a  special  manner  may  strengthen  some  of  us  whom  God  in  His 
providence  has  called  upon  to  live  outwardly  lonely  lives.  But  after  all 
companionship,  we  have  to  live  alone.  Each  man  has  to  live  his  own  life. 
We  come  singly  into  the  world  ;  and  though  God  setteth  the  solitary  in 
families,  and  there  are  manifold  blessings  of  love  and  companionship  for 
most  of  us,  yet  the  awful  burden  of  personality  weighs  upon  us  all.  Alone 
we  live  in  the  depths  of  our  hearts  ;  alone  we  have  to  front  joy  and 
sorrow.  If  thou  be  wise,  thou  shalt  be  wise  for  thyself,  and,  if  thou  scorn- 
est,  thou  alone  shall  bear  it.  The  heart  knoweth  its  own  bitterness.  All 
human  love  feel-s  its  own  limitations  in  presence  of  the  impossibility  of  sharing 
the  bodily  sicknesses  of  those  nearest  to  us.  Two  hearts  shall  be  bound 
in  closest  love,  and  the  one  shall  beat  languidly  in  a  wasted  frame  and  the 
other  throb  in  ruddy  health.  Two  hearts  shall  be  knit  in  tender  sympathy, 
and  the  one  shall  have  a  sense  of  guilt  from  some  dark  passage  in  its  past 
history,  of  which  no  shadow  falls  on  the  other.  For  some  of  us  solitary 
days  are  appointed.  We  may  think  of  Christ  and  see  the  prints  of  His 
footsteps  before  us  on  the  loneliest  road.  If  any  of  us  are  called  to  know 
the  pain  of  unsatisfied  longings  for  earthly  companions,  let  us  stretch  out  our 
hands  to  lay  hold  on  the  hand  of  that  solitary  Man  who  knew  this,  as  He 
knows  all,  sorrow.  He  felt  all  the  bitterness  of  having  to  stand  alone,  with 
no  arm  to  lean  upon  and  no  heart  to  trust.  If  we  are  left  alone,  let  us 
make  Christ  our  companion.  We  shall  not  be  utterly  sohtary  if  He  is  with 
us.  Perhaps  God  takes  away  earthly  props  that  our  love  and  desires  may 
reach  higher,  and  twine  round  the  throne  where  Christ  sits. 

312 


THE  COMPANION  OF  THE   LONELY  CHRIST. 

/  a*n  not  alone,  but  I  and  the  Father  that  sent  Me. — John  viii.  1 6. 

-J.  ,  J,  One  cannot  but  feel  the  sudden  change  in  the  words  from 
plain  time  to  exulting  notes,  from  the  pathetic  minors  of  an 
y^^olian  harp  to  the  joyous  clang  of  the  trumpet.  "  Yet  I  am  not  alone, 
for  the  Father  is  with  Me."  Here  is  the  reality  of  the  perpetual  Divine 
presence  with  Christ  and  through  Him  wiih  us.  That  is  the  first  point : 
"the  Father  is  wiih  ^Nle."  Now,  we  are  not  concerned  here  with  that 
mysterious  and  Divine  union  between  the  Divine  Father  and  the  Divine 
Son,  which,  as  I  believe,  is  a  distinct  revelation  of  Scripture,  taught  in 
such  words  as,  "The  only  begotten  Son  which  is  in  the  bosom  of  the 
Father"  ;  or,  "I  and  l\Iy  P'ather  are  One"  ;  or,  by  His  Name,  "the  Son 
of  Man  which  is  in  Heaven."  All  that  belongs  to  another  region,  where 
thought  and  language  can  safely  go  no  farther  than  as  His  own  declarations 
lead  them.  But  here  it  is  the  presence  of  God  with  Christ's  perfect  man- 
hood which  is  spoken  of — a  presence  the  same  in  kind,  however  different  in 
degree,  which  is  granted  to  all  loving  and  pure  hearts. 

Take  the  words,  then,  as  a  wonderful  utterance  or  our  Lord's  own 
consciousness.  That  nature,  perfect  in  mind,  in  will,  in  heart,  was  always 
conscious  of  an  unbroken  union  with  God.  The  mind  was  filled  with  His 
truth  ;  the  will  ever  consciously  bowing  to  His  supreme  law  ;  the  heart  ever 
at  rest  in  His  perfect  love  and  goodness.  Like  some  pure  mirror  of  steel, 
on  which  there  is  no  dint  nor  scratch  nor  stain,  but  every  portion  of  it 
capable,  and  equally  capable,  of  receiving  and  flashing  back  in  brightness 
the  rays  of  the  sun,  the  whole  Man,  Christ  Jesus,  spread  Himself  out,  if  I 
may  so  say,  beneath  the  lustre  of  God,  and  was  shone  upon  with  the 
unvarying  radiance  of  His  unclouded  presence. 

And  that  is  possible  for  us  through  Him.  "  I  do  always,"  said  He, 
*'the  things  that  please  Him."  And,  therefore,  "the  Father  hath  not  left 
Me  alone."  We  can  come  to  Him,  though  our  natures,  as  compared  with 
His,  be  like  the  same  shield — all  battered  and  bruised,  and  stained  with 
evil,  and  eaten  into  with  rust,  and  incapable  of  catching  the  light  or  of 
throwing  it  back.  We  can  go  to  that  Christ  in  whom  we  come  near  to 
God,  and  in  whom  God  comes  near  to  us  ;  and,  holding  by  Him,  we  can 
enter  into  the  fellowship,  the  wondrous  fellowship,  of  the  Father  God,  who 
will  draw  near  to  our  minds  and  hearts  and  wills,  and  make  all  the  fitful 
and  fleeting  days  of  our  earthly  existence  stately  and  noble,  and  happy  with 
the  benediction  and  the  elevation  of  His  felt  presence.  "The  Father  is 
with  Me."  My  brother,  is  He  with  you,  or  has  He  ever  been  with  you  in 
such  a  fashion  as  this?  It  is  possible  that  He  should  be.  Christ  has 
brought  God  near  to  us  ;  He  will  bring  us  near  to  God.  He  is  near  us 
in  His  own  gracious  presence,  and  in  Him  God  is  near.  His  Name  is 
Immanuel — God  with  us.  He  that  hath  the  Son  hath  the  Father  also. 
He  lived  alone,  and  went  down  into  death  alone,  that  no  soul  need  ever  be 
solitary  any  more. 


A   SUFFICIENCY  FOR  ALL   NEED. 

/  atn  poor  and  needy,  yet  the  Lord  thinketh  upon  me. — Psalm  xl.  1 7. 

jj  ,  g  The  joy  and  triumph  which  ring  through  the  words  of  Christ, 
"I  am  not  alone,"  suggest  the  sufticiency  of  that  Divine 
presence  for  all  the  needs  of  the  heart.  Christ  felt  that  He  was  not  alone, 
that  the  dreariness  of  the  solitude  had  passed  away,  l^ecause  the  Father's 
presence  was  enough.  He  was  the  loneliest  of  men,  and  He  was  also  the 
most  rich  in  sufficient  companionship — the  most  sad  and  the  most  happy. 
So  the  surface  and  the  depth  of  His  life  present  the  sharpest  contrasts. 
Opposites  meet  in  Him  :  He  was  the  Man  of  Sorrows,  and  acquainted  with 
grief,  "and  yet  God  anointed  Him  with  the  oil  of  gladness  above  His 
fellows."  He  was  "sorrowful,  yet  always  rejoicing  ;  poor,  yet  making  the 
world  rich  ;  as  having  nothing,  and  yet  possessing  all  things."  For  Him 
the  Father's  presence  was  sunshine  in  the  darkness  ;  summer  in  the  depth 
of  winter  ;  life  in  the  very  jaws  of  death. 

And  for  you  and  me  the  Father's  presence  will  be  enough,  too.  It  will 
not  be  exactly  the  same  thing  as  the  society  and  communion  of  dear  ones, 
and  there  may  be  a  sense  of  loss  and  pain  with  us,  as  there  was  with  Him, 
but  yet  the  blessed  consciousness  of  God's  presence  will  satisfy  our  hearts. 
So,  whether  we  have  to  walk  a  lonely  road,  or  are  compassed  by  lovers  and 
friends,  and  yet  feel  often  much  apart,  let  us  lift  our  hearts  to  God  in 
Christ,  and  He  will  come  to  be  our  companion.  God  and  you  will  make 
society  enough  for  you.  "  Thou  hast  made  me  exceeding  glad  through  Thy 
countenance." 

We  never  know  the  blessedness  of  God's  presence  till  we  have  felt  the 
loneliness  of  life.  "  I  was  left  alone  and  I  saw  this  great  vision."  We 
must  detach  ourselves  from  earth,  and  shut  our  doors  about  us  before  we 
can  have  the  vision  of  God.  Solitude  is  the  mother  of  all  great  and  holy 
thoughts.  To  enter  into  thyself,  said  one  of  the  mystics,  is  to  ascend  to 
Heaven.  He  who  is  at  all  times  alone,  said  another,  is  worthy  of  God 
who  is  then  present.  Prayer  is  the  flight  of  the  lonely  soul  to  the  alone 
God. 

The  blessed  communion  between  Christ  and  God,  the  Man  Christ  Jesus 
and  His  Divine  Father,  was  broken  once.  "  My  God  !  My  God  !  why 
hast  Thou  forsaken  Me?"  Broken  once — wherefore?  How?  Because 
He,  in  the  depth  of  His  love,  in  the  might  of  His  sympathy,  in  the  reality 
of  His  union  with  mankind,  so  identified  Himself  with  us,  in  our  sins  and 
in  their  punishment,  that  the  last  issue  of  sin  fell  upon  Him,  and  He  tasted 
the  extremes!  bitterness  of  the  cup,  in  the  separation  from  God,  which  is 
eternal  death.  That  was  for  us  and  for  all  men.  "  I  could  wish  myself 
accursed,"  said  the  servant.  The  Master  did  more  than  wish  ;  He  made 
Himself  a  curse  for  us.  He  bore  that  last,  most  awful,  consequence  of  sin, 
and  was  left  alone,  bereft  of  God,  in  the  darkness,  that  we  might  never  lose 
the  light  of  God's  face,  nor  the  strength  and  joy  of  our  Father's  presence. 

Let  us  bow  with  hushed  and  grateful  spirits  before  that  miracle  and 
mystery  of  love,  and  yield  ourselves  to  Him.  Trusting  to  Him,  we  shall 
never  be  solitary  any  more,  for  He  hath  said,  "  Lo  !  I  am  with  you 
always." 

3M 


"FEAR  NOT:   ONLY   BELIEVE." 

Jesus  hearing  it,  attswered  him,  Fear  not :  only  believe,  and  she  shall  be 
made  whole. — Luke  viii.  50. 

This  is  the  word  of  cheer  which  sustains  a  staggering  faith. 
How  preposterous  this  rekindling  of  hope  must  have  seemed 
to  Jairus  when  the  storm  had  blown  out  the  last  flickering  spark  !  How 
irrelevant,  if  it  were  not  cruel,  the  "Fear  not"  must  have  sounded  when 
the  last  possible  blow  had  fallen.  And  yet,  because  of  the  word  in  the 
middle,  embedded  between  the  obligation  to  hope  and  the  prohibition  to 
fear,  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  is  preposterous.  "Only  believe."' 
That  is  in  the  centre;  and  on  the  one  side,  "Fear  not!" — a  command 
ridiculous  without  it ;  and  on  the  other  side,  hope  ! — an  injunction  impossible 
apart  from  faith. 

Jesus  Christ  is  saying  the  very  same  things  to  us.  His  fundamental 
commandment  is,  "Only  believe";  and  there  effloresce  from  it  the  two 
things,  courage  that  never  trembles,  and  hope  that  never  despairs.  "  Only 
beheve."  Usually  He  made  the  outflow  of  His  miraculous  power  contingent 
upon  the  faith  either  of  the  sufferer  himself  or  of  some  others.  There  was 
no  necessity  for  the  connection.  We  have  instances  in  His  life  of  miracles 
wrought  without  faith,  without  asking ;  simply  at  the  bidding  of  His  own 
irrepressible  pity.  But  the  rule  in  regard  to  His  miracles  is,  that  faith  was 
the  condition  which  drew  out  the  miraculous  energy.  The  connection 
between  our  faith  and  our  experience  of  His  supernatural  sustaining, 
cleansing,  gladdening,  enlightening  power  is  closer  than  that.  For,  with- 
out our  trust  in  Him,  He  can  do  no  mighty  works  upon  us  ;  and  there  must 
be  confidence  on  our  part  before  there  is  in  our  experience  the  reception 
into  our  lives  of  His  highest  blessings  ;  just  because  they  are  greater  and 
deeper,  and  belong  to  a  more  inward  sphere  than  these  outv/ard  and 
inferior  miracles  of  bodily  healing.  Therefore  the  connection  between  our 
faith  and  His  gifts  to  us  is  inevitable  and  constant,  and  the  commandment, 
"Only  believe,"  assumes  a  more  imperative  stringency  in  regard  to  our 
spiritual  experience,  than  it  ever  did  in  regard  to  those  who  felt  the  power 
of  His  miracle-working  hand.  So  it  stands  for  us  as  the  one  central 
appeal  and  exhortation  which  Christ,  by  His  life,  by  the  record  of  His 
love,  by  His  Cross  and  Passion,  by  His  dealings  and  pleadings  with  us, 
through  His  Spirit,  and  His  providence  to-day,  is  making  to  us  all.  "  Only 
believe" — the  one  act  that  vitally  knits  the  soul  to  Christ,  and  makes  it 
capable  of  receiving  unto  itself  the  fulness  of  His  loftiest  blessings. 


HOPE  AND  FEAR. 

Fear  not^Jor  I  am  with  thee,  and  will  bless  thee. — Gen.  xxvi.  24. 

W  .  ,,  Faith  is  the  one  counterpoise  of  fear.  There  is  none  other 
for  the  deepest  dreads  that  lie  cold  and  paralysing,  though 
often  dormant,  in  every  human  spirit  ;  and  that  ought  to  lie  there.  If  a 
man  has  not  faith  in  God,  in  Christ,  he  otighi  to  have  fear.  For  there  rise 
before  him — solitary,  helpless,  inextricably  caught  into  the  meshes  of  this 
mysterious  and  awful  system  of  things — a  whole  host  of  possible,  or  pro- 
bable, or  certain  calamities  ;  and  what  is  he  to  do  ?  stand  there  in  the  open, 
with  the  pelting  of  the  pitiless  storm  coming  down  upon  him  ?  The  man 
is  an  idiot  if  he  is  not  afraid.  And  what  is  to  calm  those  rational  fears  — 
the  fear  of  wrath,  of  life,  of  death,  of  what  lies  beyond  death?  You  can- 
not whistle  them  away.  You  cannot  ignore  them  always.  You  cannot 
grapple  with  them  in  your  own  strength.  ''  Only  believe,"  says  the  Com- 
forter and  the  Courage-Bringer.  The  attitude  of  trust  banishes  dread,  and 
nothing  else  will  effectually  and  reasonably  do  it.  I  will  forewarn  you 
whom  ye  shall  fear — Him  who  can  slay  and  who  judges.  You  have,  and 
you  cannot  break,  a  connection  with  God.  He  ought  to  be  one  of  two 
things:  your  ghastliest  dread  or  your  absolute  trust.  "Only  believe." 
'*  Fear  not."     Believe  not,  then  be  afraid  ;  for  you  have  reason  to  be. 

Men  say,  "  Oh  !  keep  your  courage  up,"  and  they  contribute  no  means 
to  keep  it  up.  Christ  says,  "  Fear  not,  only  believe,"  and  gives  to  faith 
the  courage  which  He  enjoins.  Like  a  child  that  never  dreams  of  any 
mischief  being  able  to  reach  it  when  the  mother's  breast  is  beneath  its  head 
and  the  mother's  arms  are  round  its  little  body,  each  of  us  may  rest  on 
Christ's  breast,  and  feel  His  arm  round  about  us.  Then  we  may  smile  at 
all  that  men  call  evils ;  and  whether  they  are  possible,  or  probable,  or 
certain,  we  can  look  at  them  all  and  say,  "Ah  !  I  have  circumvented  you." 
"All  things  work  together  for  good  to  them  that"  trust  Christ.  "Fear 
not  :  only  believe." 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  from  that  simple  faith  will  spring  up  also  hope 
that  cannot  despair.  "She  shall  be  made  whole,"  said  the  Master  to 
Jairus.  Irreversible  disasters  have  no  place  in  Christian  experience. 
There  are  no  irrevocable  losses  to  him  who  trusts.  There  are  no  wounds 
that  cannot  be  staunched,  when  we  go  to  Him  who  has  the  balm  and  the 
bandage.  Although  it  is  true  that  dead  faces  do  not  smile  again  upon  us 
until  we  get  beyond  earth's  darkness,  it  is  also  true  that  bonds  broken  may 
be  knit  in  a  finer  fashion,  if  faith  instead  of  sense  weaves  them  together ; 
and  that  in  the  great  future  we  shall  find  that  the  true  healing  of  those  that 
^vent  away  was  not  by  deliverance  from,  but  by  passing  through  the  death 
that  emancipates  from,  the  long  disease  ot  earthly  life. 

If  we  trust  Christ,  we  may  "hope  perfectly."  If  we  do  not  trust 
Him,  our  firmest  hopes  are  as  spiders'  webs  that  are  swept  away  by  a 
besom,  and  our  deepest  desires  remain  unfulfilled.  "  Only  beheve."  Then, 
en  the  one  side,  "  Fear  not,"  and  on  the  other  side,  "  Hope  ever." 


THE  VOICE  V/HICH  SOFTENS  THE  GRIiMNESS  OF   DEATH. 

j4ll  were  weepivg  and  bewailing  her  ;  but  He  said.  Weep  not :  for  she  is 
not  dead,  but  sleepeih. — Luke  viii.  52. 

■N"  h  12  ^UR  Lord  reaches  the  house  of  afiQiction,  ar.d  finds  it  a  house 
of  hubbub  and  noise.  The  hired  mourners,  with  their  shrill 
shrieks,  were  there  ah-eady,  bewailing  her.  The  tumult  jarred  upon  His 
calmness,  and  He  says,  "Weep  not;  she  is  not  dead,  but  sleepeth."  One 
wonders  that  some  people  have  read  those  words  as  if  they  declared  that 
the  apparent  physical  death  was  only  a  swoon  or  a  faint,  or  some  kind  of 
coma,  and  that  so  there  was  no  miracle  at  all  in  the  case.  "  They  laughed 
Him  to  scorn,  knowing  that  she  was  dead."  You  can  measure  the  holiow- 
ness  of  their  grief  by  its  change  into  scornful  laughter  when  a  promise  of 
consolation  began  to  open  before  them.  And  you  can  measure  their  worth 
as  witnesses  to  the  child's  resurrection  by  their  absolute  certainty  of  her 
death.  But  notice  that  our  Lord  never  forbids  weeping  unless  He  takes 
away  its  cause.  "  Weep  not  "  is  another  of  the  futile  forms  of  words  with 
which  men  try  to  encourage  and  comfort  one  another.  There  is  nothing 
more  cruel  than  to  forbid  tears  to  the  sad  heart.  Jesus  Christ  never  did 
that  except  when  He  was  able  to  bring  that  which  took  away  occasion  for 
weeping.  Fie  lets  grief  have  its  way.  He  means  us  to  run  rivers  of  waters 
down  our  cheeks  when  He  sends  us  sorrows.  We  shall  never  get  the 
blessing  of  them  till  we  have  felt  the  bitterness  of  them.  We  shall  never 
profit  by  them  if  we  stoically  choke  back  the  manifestations  of  our  grief, 
and  think  that  it  is  submissive  to  be  dumb.  Let  sorrow  have  way.  Tears 
purge  the  heart  from  which  their  streams  come.  But  Jesus  Christ  says  to 
us  all,  "Weep  not,"  because  He  comes  to  us  all  with  that  which,  if  I  may 
so  say,  puts  a  rainbow  into  the  tear-drops,  and  makes  it  possible  that  the 
great  paradox  should  be  fulfilled  in  our  hearts,  "as  sorrowful,  yet  always 
rejoicing."  Weep  not;  or,  if  you  weep,  let  the  tears  have  thankfulness  as 
well  as  grief  in  them.  It  is  a  difficult  commandment,  but  it  is  possible 
when  His  lips  tells  us  not  to  weep,  and  we  have  obeyed  the  central  exhorta- 
tion, "  Only  believe."  How  He  smooths  away  the  grimness  of  death  t 
I  do  not  claim  for  Him  anything  like  a  monopoly  of  that  most  obvious  and 
natural  symbolism  which  regards  death  as  a  sleep.  It  must  have  occurred 
to  all  who  ever  looked  upon  a  corpse.  But  I  do  claim  that  when  He  used 
the  metaphor,  and  by  His  use  of  it  modified  the  whole  conception  of  death 
in  the  thoughts  of  His  disciples,  He  put  altogether  different  ideas  into  it 
from  that  which  it  contained  on  the  lips  of  others.  He  meant  to  suggest 
the  idea  of  repose  : — 

"  Sleep,  full  of  rest  from  head  to  foot." 
The  calm  immobility  of  the  body,  so  lately  racked  with  pain,  or  restless  in 
feverish  tossings,  is  but  a  symbol  of  the  deeper  stillness  of  truer  repose 
which  remaineth  for  the  people  of  God.  He  meant  to  suggest  the  idea  of 
separation  from  this  material  world.  He  did  not  mean  to  suggest  the  idea 
of  unconsciousness.  A  man  is  not  unconscious  when  he  is  asleep,  as  dreams 
testify.  He  meant,  above  all,  if  a  sleep,  then  waking.  So  the  grim  fact  is 
smoothed  down,  not  by  blinking  any  of  its  aspects,  but  by  looking  deeper 
into  them.  They  who,  only  believing,  have  lived  a  life  of  courage  and  of 
hope,  and  have  fronted  sorrows,  and  felt  the  benediction  of  tears,  pass  into 
the  great  darkness,  and  know  that  they  there  are  rocked  to  sleep  on  a  loving 
breast,  and,  sleeping  in  Jesus,  shall  wake  with  the  earliest  morning  h'ght. 


A   LIFE-GIVING   WORD   OF   POWER. 

He,  taking  her  by  the  hand,  called,  saying,  Maiden,  artsc.  And  her 
spirit  returned,  and  she  rose  up  immediately. — Luke  viii.  54,  55. 

November  13  "  ^Iaiden,  arise  !"  All  the  circumstances  of  the  miracle 
are  marked  by  the  most  lovely  consideration,  on  Christ's 
part,  of  the  timidity  of  the  little  girl  of  twelve  years  of  age.  It  is  because 
of  that  that  He  seeks  to  raise  her  in  privacy,  whereas  the  son  of  the  widow 
of  Nain,  and  Lazarus,  were  raised  amidst  a  crowd.  It  is  because  of  that 
that  He  selects  as  His  companions  in  the  room  only  the  three  chief  apostles 
as  witnesses,  and  the  father  and  mother  of  the  child.  It  is  because  of  that 
He  puts  forth  His  hand  and  grasps  hers,  in  order  that  the  child's  eyes  when 
they  open  should  see  only  the  loving  faces  of  parents,  and  the  not  less 
loving  face  of  the  Master  ;  and  that  her  hand,  when  it  began  to  move 
again,  should  clasp,  first.  His  own  tender  hand.  It  is  for  the  same 
reason  that  the  remarkable  appendix  to  the  miracle  is  given — "He 
commanded  that  they  should  give  her  food."  Surely  that  is  an  inimitable 
note  of  truth.  No  legend-manufacturer  would  have  dared  to  drop  down 
to  such  a  homely  word  as  that,  after  such  a  word  as  "  Maiden,  arise  !" 
An  economy  of  miraculous  power  is  shown  here,  such  as  was  shown  when, 
after  Lazarus  came  forth,  other  hands  had  to  untie  the  grave-clothes  which 
tripped  him  as  he  stumbled  along.  Christ  will  do  by  miracle  what  is 
needful  and  not  one  hair's  breadth  more.  In  Plis  calm  majesty  He  bethinks 
Himself  of  the  hungry  child,  and  leaves  to  others  the  task  of  giving  her 
food.  That  homely  touch  is,  to  me,  indicative  of  the  simple  veracity  of 
the  historian. 

But  the  life-giving  word  itself — what  can  we  say  about  it  ?  Only  this 
one  thing  :  here  Jesus  Christ  exercises  a  manifest  Divine  prerogative.  It 
was  no  more  the  syllables  that  He  spoke  than  it  was  the  touch  of  His 
hand  that  raised  that  child.  What  was  it  ?  The  forth-putting  of  His  will, 
which  went  away  straight  into  the  darkness  ;  and  if  the  disembodied  spirit 
was  in  a  locality,  went  straight  there,  and,  somehow  or  other,  laid  hold  of 
the  spirit,  and,  somehow  or  other,  reinstated  it  in  its  home.  Christ's 
will,  like  the  king's  writ,  runs  through  all  the  universe.  *'  He  spake,  and 
it  was  done  " — whose  prerogative  is  that  ?  God's  ;  and  God  manifest  in 
the  flesh  exercised  it.  The  words  of  the  Incarnate  Word  have  power  over 
physical  things. 

Here,  too,  is  the  prelude  and  firstfruits  of  our  resurrection.  Not  that 
there  are  not  wide  differences  betv/een  the  raising  of  this  child  and  that 
future  resurrection  to  which  Christian  hope  looks  forward,  but  that  in  this 
one  little  incident — little  compra'ed  with  the  majestic  scale  of  the  latter — 
there  come  out  these  two  things  :  the  demonsti-ation  that  conscious  life 
runs  on,  irrespective  of  the  accident  of  its  being  unilcd  witli  or  separated 
from  a  bodily  organisation  ;  and  the  other,  that  Jesus  Christ  has  power 
over  men's  spirits,  and  can  fit  them  at  His  will  to  bodies  appropriate  to 
their  condition.  Time  is  no  element  in  the  case.  What  befals  the 
particles  of  the  human  frame  is  no  element  in  the  case.  "  Thou  sowcst 
not  the  body  that  shall  be."  But  if  that  Lord  had  the  power,  which  He 
showed  in  that  one  chamber,  with  that  one  child,  then,  as  a  little  window 
may  show  us  great  matters,  so  we  see  through  this  single  incident  the  time 
when  "  they  that  are  in  the  graves  shall  hear  His  voice,  and  shall  come 
forth." 

318 


THE   GREAT  ALTERNATIVE. 

Elijah  came  near  tmto  all  the  people  and  said,  How  long  halt  ye  between 
two  opinions  ?  If  the  Lord  be  God,  follow  Him  ;  but  if  Baal,  then  follow 
him. — I  Kings,  xviii.  2i. 

N  be  14  The  vehement  question  of  Elijah  is,  perhaps,  still  more 
picturesque  in  the  original,  for  one  rendering  gives,  "How 
long  limp  ye  on  two  knees?"  a  vulgar,  but  expressive,  figure  by  which 
indecision  is  likened  to  a  cripple  hobbling  along  first  on  one  knee  and 
then  on  the  other.  But  whether  that  be  so  or  no,  there  is  no  mistaking 
the  ring  of  contempt  and  impatience  with  which  the  prophet,  so  convinced 
himself,  rebukes  the  pitiable  weakness  that  sought  to  unite  two  such 
discrepancies  as  the  V;'orship  of  God  and  the  worship  of  Baal.  Unite,  I 
say  ;  for  it  is  to  be  observed  that,  in  accordance  with  the  tone  of  the 
question  and  the  facts  of  the  case,  the  worship  of  idols  was  not  proposed 
as  a  substitute  for,  but  as  an  accompaniment  and  a  form  of,  worship  of 
Jehovah.  The  only  person  that  objected  was  Jehovah.  Polytheism  is 
always  hospitable  ;  for  when  "  there  are  gods  many  and  lords  many,"  one  or 
two  more  make  very  Httle  difference,  and  Baal  had  no  objection  to  Jehovah's 
altar  standing  behind  his.  But  Jehovah  is  intolerant,  for  He  is  alone. 
"  Thou  shalt  have  none  other  gods  beside  Me,"  and  to  enthrone  another 
is  to  dethrone  Him. 

What  do  I  mean  by  choice  ?  I  mean,  first,  an  honest  fronting  of  all 
the  facts  of  the  case,  so  far  as  these  are  ascertainable.  Have  you  ever  sat 
down  and  taken  stock  of  your  position?  Have  you  ever  looked  at  the 
claims  of  God  revealed  in  Christ — at  your  own  natures,  and  what  they  tell 
you  you  ought  to  be  to  Him,  and  He,  and  He  only,  may  be  to  you.  Have 
you  fronted  eternity,  and  given  that  its  due  weight  as  a  factor  in  the 
decision  of  your  conduct?  Unless  you  have,  you  may  say,  "  I  choose  not 
to  be  a  Christian,"  but  the  word  choice  is  as  much  misapplied  to  that 
instinctive  decision  as  it  would  be  to  the  child's  act  when  it  puts  out  its 
hand  to  lay  hold  of  the  moon.  First  and  foremost,  the  state  of  the  case 
should  be  looked  at  all  round  ;  and  until  you  have  done  that  you  have  no 
business  to  make  a  choice  ;  for  God  gave  you  the  power  of  choice  that 
it  should  be  ruled  by  your  reason,  and  your  reason  directed  by  your 
conscience,  and  your  conscience  illuminated  by  His  revelation. 

And  then  I  mean  that  a  deliberate  decision  should  be  made  in  accord- 
ance with  the  evidence,  and  that  you  should  not,  first  of  all,  contemplate 
the  facts  of  the  case,  and  then  shut  your  eyes,  and,  to  use  a  vulgar 
expression,  "go  it  blind,"  and  decide  as  you  like  and  not  as  reason  and 
conscience  tell  you.  And  I  mean,  further,  that  on  the  back  of  intelligent 
weighing  of  the  facts  and  deliberate  decision,  moulded  by  these,  there 
should  come  appropriate  action.      "  If  the  Lord  be  God,  follow  Him." 

Now,  I  believe  that  these  three  things  are  deplorably  wanting,  as  in 
regard  of  all  the  lives  of  all  of  us,  so  most  eminently  in  regard  of  the  lives 
of  the  great  majority  of  people  who  have  not  committed  the  keeping  of 
their  souls  to  Jesus  Christ,  and  taken  service  in  His  army. 

319 


''NOW  IS   THE  ACCEPTED  TIME." 

Remember  also  thy  Creator  in  the  days  of  thy  youth,  or  ever  the  evil  days 
come,  and  the  years  draw  nigh,  zvhen  thou  shalt  say,  I  have  no  pleasure  in 
them. — EccLES.  xii.  I. 

J-  VIC  Would  it  not  have  been  a  very  sensible  thing  of  the 
Israelites  on  Carmel  if,  after  ihey  saw  the  miracle  of  the  fire 
falling  from  heaven,  they  had  said  to  the  prophet,  "We  will  hear  thee 
again  on  this  matter?"  They  were  wiser.  Ctnviction  followed  im- 
mediately. Resolution  and  action  came  close  on  the  heels  of  conviction. 
"All  the  people  fell  on  their  faces  and  said,  The  Lord  !  He  is  God.  The 
Lord  !  He  is  God."  That  is  a  wise  course  always.  To-morrow  is  the 
fool's  plea,  by  which  he  cheats  himself,  but  cheats  neither  this  inexorable 
universe  nor  the  God  that  made  it.  Many  a  man  dies  a  drunkard  who 
for  half  a  lifetime  has  been  saying,  "To-morrow  I  will  begin  to  reform." 
And  when  the  last  of  the  to-morrows  has  sunk  into  yesterday,  it  leaves  him 
as  it  found  him.  Procrastination  in  doing  right  is  continuance  in  doing 
wrong.  We  live  in  too  uncertain  and  too  strenuous  a  world  to  allow  any 
grass  to  grow  under  our  feet  in  putting  into  exercise  our  deliberate 
decisions.  That  is  true  all  round,  but  most  eminently  in  regard  of  our 
submission  to  Jesus  Christ. 

Consider  how  much  youth  needs  the  guidance  and  the  grace  of  Jesus 
Christ.  Your  experience  is  little,  your  hopes  are  bright,  your  passions  are 
strong,  your  temptations  are  many.  Everything  is  fresh  and  radiant  round 
you.  With  the  unreflectiveness  and  the  buoyant  hopefulness  which  are 
your  beautiful  privileges,  and  are  so  soon  knocked  out  of  us,  you  are  eager 
to  cast  yourself  into  the  fray.  You  sometimes  think  that  religion  is  very 
good  for  old  people  like  me,  but  not  necessary  for  you.  "Wilt  thou  not 
from  this  time  say,  My  P'ather,  Thou  art  the  Guide  of  my  youth  "  ?  That 
will  keep  you  from  many  a  sore  heart  and  from  many  a  sad  hour. 

Consider  how  favourable  youth  is  to  decision.  We  older  men  are  like 
flies  in  a  spider's  web,  with  a  hundred  filaments,  poisonous  and  dirty,  spun 
round  us,  and  making  movement  difficult.  You  have  but  little  of  that  yet. 
You  are  not  yet  "tied  and  bound  by  the  cords  of  your  sins."  You  have 
not  many  deep-rooted  evil  habits  to  break.  There  are  not  many  black 
pages  on  your  diary  which  you  would  fain  erase,  and  which  make  you 
feel  that  the  tragedy  of  life  is  "What  I  have  written  I  have  written." 
This  is  your  time  to  plant.  Your  lives  are  before  you,  your  characters  as 
yet  are  plastic.  The  lava  is  molten  ;  it  is  hardening  very  frst.  Do  you 
not  put  off  this  dehberate  decision  about  which  I  am  speaking  till  it  is 
hardened  into  rock. 

Consider  how  much  you  gain  by  youthful  decision  for  Jesus  Christ. 
So  much  the  longer  blessedness,  so  many  more  hours  of  peaceful  growth  ; 
no  cleft  in  your  lives  between  a  past  that  your  cheek  burns  to  think  about, 
and  a  poor  present  in  which  you  try  to  redeem  it,  the  m\stic  influence  of 
habit  on  the  side  of  godliness.  Oh,  it  is  beautiful  !  when  we  have  "first 
the  blade,  then  the  ear,  tlien  the  full  corn  in  the  ear."  And  the  men  that 
have  done  most  work  for  God  and  man  in  the  world  are,  in  nine  cases  out 
of  ten,  the  men  who  in  their  early  days  were  kept  innocent  and  ignorant 
of  much  transgression  because  they  were  the  servants  of  the  Lord  from 
their  youth. 

32© 


BLESSED   UNCONSCIOUSNESS. 

Moses  wist  not  that  the  skin  of  his  face  shone  by  reason  of  his  speaking 
with  Him. — ExOD.  xxxiv.  29. 

V  iR  The  experience  of  Moses  teaches  us  that  the  loftiest  beauty 
November  .  ^^  character  comes  from  communion  with  God.  That  is  the 
use  that  the  Apostle  makes  of  this  remarkable  incident  in  2  Corinthians  iii., 
where  he  takes  the  light  that  shone  from  Moses'  face  as  being  the  symbol  of 
the  better  lustre  that  gleaiTis  from  all  those  who  behold  (or  reflect)  the  glory 
of  the  Lord  with  unveiled  faces,  and,  by  beholding,  are  changed  into  the 
likeness  of  that  on  which  they  gaze  with  adoration  and  longing.  The 
great  law  to  which,  almost  exclusively,  Christianity  commits  the  perfecting 
of  individual  character  is  this  :  Look  at  Ilim  till  you  are  hke  Him,  and, 
in  beholding,  be  changed.  There  have  been  in  the  past,  and  there  are 
to-day,  thousands  of  simple  souls  shut  out  by  lowHness  of  position  and 
other  circumstances  from  all  the  refining  and  ennobling  influences  of  which 
the  world  makes  so  much,  who  yet  in  character  and  bearing,  aye,  and 
sometimes  in  the  very  look  of  their  meek  faces,  are  living  witnesses  how 
true  and  mighty  to  transform  a  nature  is  the  power  of  loving  gaze  upon 
Jesus  Christ.  There  is  no  influence  to  refine  and  beautify  men  like  that 
of  living  near  Jesus  Christ,  and  walking  in  the  light  of  that  beauty  which 
is  the  effulgence  of  the  Divine  glory  and  the  express  image  of  His  Person. 

But,  then,  the  bearer  of  the  radiance  is  unconscious  of  it.  In  all  regions 
of  life  the  consummate  apex  and  crov/ning  charm  of  excellence  is  un- 
consciousness of  excellence.  Whenever  a  man  begins  to  suspect  that  he 
is  good  he  begins  to  be  bad  ;  and  you  rob  every  virtue  and  beauty  of 
character  of  some  portion  of  its  attractive  fairness  when  the  man  who  bears 
it  knows,  or  fancies  that  he  knows,  it.  The  more  a  man  is  like  Christ, 
the  less  he  knows  it  ;  and  the  better  he  is  the  less  he  suspects  it.  Let  us 
try  to  lose  ourselves  in  Jesus  Christ.  It  is  safe  for  us  to  leave  all  thoughts 
of  our  miserable  selves  behind  us,  if  instead  of  them  we  have  the  thought 
of  that  great,  sweet,  dear  Lord  filling  mind  and  heart. 

Think  constantly  and  longingly  of  the  unattained.  "  Brethren,  I  count 
net  myself  to  have  apprehended."  Endless  aspiration  and  a  stinging 
consciousness  of  present  imperfection  are  the  loftiest  states  of  man  here 
below.  The  people  down  in  the  valley,  when  they  look  up,  may  see  our 
figures  against  the  sky-line,  and  fancy  us  at  the  summit ;  but  our  loftier 
elevation  reveals  untrodden  heights  beyond,  and  we  have  only  risen^  so 
high  in  order  to  discern  more  clearly  how  much  higher  we  have  to  rise. 
The  best  way  to  keep  unconscious  of  present  attainments  is  to  set  our  faces 
forward,  and  to  make  "  all  experience  "  as  "  an  arch  where  through  gleams 
that  untravelled  world  to  which  we  move."  Let  us  cultivate  a  clear  sense 
of  our  own  imperfections.  We  do  not  need  to  try  to  learn  our  goodness 
that  will  suggest  itself  to  us  only  too  clearly  ;  but  what  we  do  need  is  to  have 
a  very  clear  sense  of  our  shortcomings  and  failures,  our  faults  of  temper,  our 
faults  of  desire,  our  faults  in  our  relations  to  our  fellows.  A  true  man  will 
never  be  so  much  ashamed  of  himself  as  when  he  is  praised,  for  it  will 
always  send  him  to  look  into  the  deep  places  of  his  heart,  and  there  will  be 
plenty  of  ugly  creeping  things  under  the  stones  there  if  he  will  only  turn 
them  up  and  look  beneath. 

321  Y 


TRAGIC  UNCONSCIOUSNESS. 

He  wist  not  that  the  Lord  was  departed  from  him. — ^JUDG.  xvi.  20. 

__  V  17  Samson,  fresh  from  his  coarse  debauch,  and  shorn  of  the 
locks  which  he  had  vowed  to  keep,  strides  out  into  the  air, 
and  tries  his  former  feats.  But  his  strength  has  left  him  because  the  Lord 
has  left  him  ;  and  the  Lord  has  left  him  because,  in  his  fleshly  animalism, 
he  has  left  the  Lord.  Tlie  strong  man  made  weak  is  unconscious  of  his 
weakness.  All  evil,  by  its  very  nature,  tends  to  make  us  insensitive  to  its 
presence.  Conscience  becomes  dull  by  practice  of  sin  and  by  neglect 
of  conscience,  until  that  wliich  at  first  was  as  sensitive  as  the  palm  of  a 
little  child's  hand  becomes  as  if  it  were  "seared  with  a  hot  iron."  The 
foulness  of  the  atmosphere  of  a  crowded  hall  is  not  perceived  by  the  people 
in  it.  It  needs  a  man  to  come  in  from  the  outer  air  to  detect  it.  We  can 
accustom  ourselves  to  any  mephitic  and  poisonous  atmosphere,  and  many 
of  us  live  in  one  all  our  days,  and  do  not  know  that  there  is  any  need  of 
ventilation  or  that  the  air  is  not  perfectly  sweet.  The  deceitfulness  of  sin 
is  its  great  weapon.  Christian  people  may  lose  their  strength  because  they 
let  go  their  hold  upon  God,  and  know  nothing  about  it.  Spiritual  declen- 
sion, all  unconscious  of  its  own  existence,  is  the  very  history  of  hundreds 
of  nominal  Christians.  When  the  life-blood  is  pouring  out  of  a  man,  he 
faints  Ijefore  he  dies.  The  swoon  of  unconsciousness  is  the  condition  ot 
some  professing  Christians.  Frost-bitten  limbs  are  quite  comfortable,  and 
only  tingle  when  circulation  is  coming  back.  I  remember  a  great  elm- 
tree,  the  pride  of  an  avenue  in  the  south,  that  had  spread  its  branches  for 
more  years  than  the  oldest  man  could  count,  and  stood,  leafy  and  green. 
Not  until  a  winter  storm  came  one  night  and  laid  it  low  with  a  crash  did 
anybody  suspect  what  everybody  saw  in  the  morning — that  the  heart  was 
eaten  out  of  it,  and  nothing  left  but  a  shell  of  bark.  Some  Christian  people 
are  like  that  :  they  manage  leaves,  and  even  some  fruit ;  but  when  the 
storm  comes,  they  will  go  down,  l^ecause  the  heart  has  been  out  of  their 
religion  for  years.  And  so,  because  there  are  so  many  things  that 
mask  the  ebbing  away  of  a  Christian  life,  and  because  our  own  self-love 
and  habits  come  in  to  hide  declension,  let  us  watch  ourselves  very  narrowly. 
Unconsciousness  does  not  mean  ignorant  presumption  or  presumptuous 
ignorance.  It  is  difficult  to  make  an  estimate  of  ourselves  by  poking  into 
our  own  sentiments  and  supposed  feelings  and  convictions,  and  the  estimate 
is  likely  to  be  wrong.  There  is  a  better  way  than  that.  Two  things  tell 
what  a  man  is — one,  what  he  wants,  and  the  other,  what  he  does.  As  the 
will  is,  the  man  is.  Where  do  the  currents  of  your  desires  set  ?  If  you 
watch  their  flow,  you  may  be  pretty  sure  whether  your  religious  life  is 
an  ebbing  or  a  rising  tide.  The  other  way  to  ascertain  what  we  are  is 
rigidly  to  examine  and  judge  what  we  do.  "  Let  us  search  and  try  our 
ways,  and  turn  again  to  the  Lord."  Actions  are  the  true  test  of  a  man. 
Conduct  is  the  best  illumination  of  character,  especially  in  regard  to  our- 
selves. So  watch,  and  be  sober — sober  in  our  estimate  of  ourselves,  and 
determined  to  find  every  lurking  evil,  and  to  drag  it  forth  into  the  light. 

^22 


A  COMPANIONSHIP  THAT   CHEERS. 
Shall  two  walk  together ,  except  they  have  agreed  ?—  Amos  iii.  3, 

jj.  V  18  There  are  three  phrases  in  the  Old  Testament  very  like 
each  otlier  and  yet  presenting  different  facets  or  aspects  of 
the  same  great  truth.  Sometimes  we  read  about  "walking  before  God," 
as  Abraham  was  bid  to  do.  That  means  ordering  the  daily  life  under  the 
continual  sense  that  v/e  are  ever  in  the  great  Taskmaster's  eye.  Then 
there  is  "walking  after  God,"  and  that  means  conforming  the  will  and 
active  efforts  to  the  rule  that  He  has  laid  down  ;  setting  our  steps  firm  on 
the  paths  that  He  has  prepared,  that  we  should  walk  in  them  ;  and  accepting 
His  providences.  But  also,  then,  high  above  both  these  conceptions  of  a 
devout  life,  is  the  one  which  was  realised  in  the  case  of  the  patriarch  Enoch 
— walking  "with  God."  For  to  walk  before  Him  may  have  with  it  some 
tremor,  and  may  be  undertaken  in  the  spirit  of  the  slave,  who  would  be 
glad  to  get  away  from  the  jealous  eye  that  rebukes  his  slothfulness  ;  and 
"walking  after  Him"  may  be  a  painful  and  partial  effort  to  keep  His 
distant  figure  in  sight  ;  but  to  *' walk  with  Him  "  iaiplies  a  constant,  quiet 
sense  of  His  Divine  presence  which  forbids  that  I  should  ever  be  lonely, 
which  guides  and  defends,  which  floods  my  soul  and  fills  my  life,  and  in 
which,  as  the  companions  pace  along  side  by  side,  words  may  be  spoken  by 
either,  or  blessed  silence  may  be  eloquent  of  perfect  trust  and  rest. 

But  far  above  us  as  such  experience  seems  to  sound,  such  a  life  is  a 
possibility  for  every  one  of  us.  We  may  be  able  to  say,  as  truly  as  our 
Lord  said  it,  "'  I  am  not  alone,  for  the  Father  is  with  me."  It  is  possible 
that  tlie  dreariest  solitude  of  a  soul,  such  as  is  not  realised  when  the  body  is 
removed  from  men,  but  is  felt  most  in  the  crowded  city,  where  there  is  none 
that  loves  or  fathoms  and  sympathises,  may  be  turned  into  blessed  fellow- 
ship with  Him.  Yes  !  but  that  solitude  will  not  be  so  turned  unless  it  is 
first  painfully  felt.  As  Daniel  said,  "  I  was  left  alone,  and  I  saw  the  great 
vision."  We  need  to  feel  in  our  deepest  hearts  that  loneliness  on  earth 
before  we  walk  with  God. 

If  we  are  so  walking,  it  is  no  piece  of  fanaticism  to  say  that  there  will  be 
mutual  communications.  As  really  as  it  was  ever  true  that  the  Lord  said 
unto  Abraham,  or  Isaiah,  or  Paul,  it  is  true  that  He  now  speaks  to  the  man 
that  walks  with  Him.  Frank  speech  on  both  sides  beguiles  many  a  weary 
mile  when  lovers  or  friends  foot  it  side  by  side  And  this  pair  of  friends,  of 
whom  I  have  spoken,  have  mutual  intercourse.  God  speaks  with  His 
servant  now,  as  of  old,  "as  a  man  speaketh  with  his  friend."  And  we,  on 
our  parts,  if  we  are  truly  walking  with  Him,  shall  feel  it  natural  to  speak 
frankly  to  God.  As  two  friends  on  the  road  will  interchange  remarks  about 
trifles,  and,  if  they  love  each  other,  the  remarks  about  the  trifles  will  be 
weighted  with  love,  so  we  can  tell  our  smallest  affairs  to  God;  and,  if  we 
have  Him  for  our  Pilgrim-Companion,  we  do  not  need  to  lock  up  any 
troubles  or  concerns  of  any  sort,  big  or  little,  in  our  hearts,  but  may  speak 
them  all  to  our  Friend  that  goes  with  us. 

323 


COMMUNION  WITH    GOD. 

If  we  walk  in  the  light,  as  He  is  in  the  light,  we  have  fellowship  one  with 
another,  and  the  blood  of  fesus  His  Son  cleanseth  us  from  all  sin. — 
I  John  i.  7. 

__  1,  iQ  The  "  two"  whom  the  prophet  Amos  (iii.  3)  would  fain  see 
'  walking  together  are  God  and  Israel ;  and  his  question 
suggests  not  onh'  the  companionship  and  communion  with  God  which  are 
the  highest  form  of  religion,  and  the  aim  of  all  forms  and  ceremonies  of 
worship,  but  also  the  inexorable  condition  on  which  alone  that  height  of 
communion  can  be  secured  and  sustained.  Two  Diay  walk  together,  though 
the  one  be  God  in  Heaven  and  the  other  be  I  in  Manchester.  But  they 
have  to  be  agreed  thus  far,  at  any  rate,  that  both  shall  wish  to  be  together, 
and  both  be  going  the  same  road. 

The  two  may  walk  together.  That  is  the  end  of  all  religion.  What 
are  creeds  for?  What  are  services  and  sacraments  for?  What  is  theology 
for  ?  What  is  Christ's  redeeming  act  for  ?  All  culminate  in  this  true, 
constant  fellowship  between  men  a.nd  God.  And  unless,  in  some  measure, 
that  result  is  arrived  at  in  our  cases,  our  religion,  let  it  be  as  orthodox  as 
you  like  ;  our  faith  in  the  redemption  of  Jesus  Christ,  let  it  be  as  real  as  you 
will;  our  attendances  on  services  and  sacraments,  let  them  be  as  punctilious 
and  regular  as  maybe — are  all  "  sounding  brass  and  tinkling  cymbal."  Get 
side  by  side  with  God.  That  is  the  meaning  of  the  whole,  and  fellowship 
with  Him  is  the  climax  of  all  religion. 

It  is  also  the  secret  of  all  blessedness,  the  only  thing  that  will  make  a 
life  absolutely  sovereign  over  sorrow,  and  fixedly  unperturbed  by  all 
tempests,  and  invulnerable  to  all  "  the  slings  and  arrows  of  outrageous 
fortune."  Hold  fast  by  God,  and  you  have  an  amulet  against  every  evil, 
and  a  shield  against  every  foe,  and  a  mighty  power  that  will  calm  and 
satisfy  your  whole  being.  Nothing  else,  nothing  else  will  do  so.  As 
Augustine  said,  "  O  God  !  Thou  hast  made  us  for  Thyself,  and  in  Thyself 
only  are  we  at  rest."     If  the  Shepherd  is  with  us,  we  will  fear  no  evil. 

There  may  be,  and  therefore  there  should  be,  running  unbroken  through 
a  Christian  life,  one  long,  bright  line  of  coir.munion  with  God  and  happy 
inspiration  from  the  sense  of  His  presence  with  us.  Is  it  a  line  in  viy  life, 
or  is  tliere  but  a  dot  here,  and  a  dot  there,  ainl  long  breaks  between  ?  The 
long  embarrassed  pauses  in  a  conversation  between  two  who  do  not  know 
much  of,  or  care  much  for,  each  other  are  only  too  like  what  occurs  in 
many  professing  Christians'  intercourse  v/ith  God.  Their  communion  is 
like  those  time-worn  inscriptions  that  archceologists  dig  up,  with  a  word 
clearly  cut  and  then  a  great  gap,  and  then  a  letter  or  two,  and  then  another 
gap,  and  then  a  little  bit  more  reading,  and  then  the  stone  broken,  and  all 
the  rest  gone.  Did  you  ever  read  the  meteorological  reports  in  the 
newspapers  and  observe  a  record  like  this  :  "  Twenty  minutes  sunshine  out 
of  a  possible  eight  hours"?  Do  you  not  think  that  such  a  state  of  affairs  is 
a  lilile  like  the  experience  of  a  great  many  Christian  people  in  regard  to 
their  communion  with  God?  It  is  broken  at  the  best,  and  imperfect  at  the 
complctest,  and  shallow  at  the  deepest.  Oh  !  rise  to  the  height  of  your 
possibilities,  and  live  as  close  to  God  as  He  lets  you  live,  and  nothing  will 
much  trouble  you. 

324 


FOLLOWING   AFAR   OFF. 

Bui  Peter  followed  Him  afar  off. — Matt.  xxvi.  58.  , 

Many  women  were  there  beholding  from,  afar. — Matt,  xxvii.  55. 

_-        V     20    '^^^   consciousness   of  God's   presence   with   us  is   a  very 

ovem  er  .  j^jj^^j.^  thing.  It  is  like  a  very  sensitive  thermometer, 
which  will  drop  when  an  iceberg  is  a  league  off  over  the  sea,  and  scarcely 
visible.  We  do  not  want  His  company,  or  we  are  not  in  harmony  with 
His  thoughts,  or  we  are  not  going  His  road,  and  therefore,  of  course,  we 
part.  At  bottom  there  is  only  one  thing  that  separates  a  soul  from  God, 
and  that  is  sin — sin  of  some  sort,  like  tiny  grains  of  dust  that  get  between 
two  polished  plates  in  an  engine,  that  ought  to  move  smoothly  and  closely 
against  each  other.  The  obstruction  may  be  invisible,  and  yet  be  powerful 
enough  to  cause  friction  which  hinders  the  working  of  the  engine  and 
throws  everything  out  of  gear.  A  light  cloud,  that  we  cannot  see,  may 
come  between  us  and  a  star,  and  we  shall  only  know  it  is  there  because  the 
star  is  7ioi  visibly  there.  Similarly,  many  a  Christian,  quite  ignorantly,  has 
something  or  other  in  his  habits  or  in  his  conduct  or  in  his  affections 
which  would  reveal  itself  to  him,  if  he  would  look,  as  being  wrong  because 
it  blots  out  God. 

Let  us  remember  that  very  little  divergence  will,  if  the  two  paths  are 
prolonged  far  enough,  part  their  other  ends  by  a  world.  Our  way  may  go 
off  from  the  ways  of  the  Lord  at  a  very  acute  angle.  There  may  be  scarcely 
any  consciousness  of  parting  company  at  the  beginning.  Let  the  man 
travel  on  upon  it  far  enough,  and  the  two  will  be  so  far  apart  that  he  cannot 
see  God  or  hear  Him  speak.  Take  care  of  the  little  divergences  which 
are  habitual,  for  their  accumulated  results  will  be  complete  separation. 
There  must  be  absolute  surrender  if  there  is  to  be  uninterrupted  fellowship. 

Such,  then,  is  the  direction  in  which  we  are  to  look  for  the  reasons  for 
our  low  and  broken  experiences  of  communion  with  God,  Oh  !  dear 
friend,  when  we  do  as  we  sometimes  do,  wake  with  a  start,  like  a  child 
that  all  at  once  starts  from  sleep  and  finds  that  its  mother  is  gone — when 
we  wake  with  a  start  to  feel  that  we  are  alone,  then  do  not  let  us  be  afraid 
to  go  straight  back.  Only  be  sure  that  we  leave  behind  us  the  thing  that 
parted  us. 

You  remember  how  Peter  signalised  himself  on  the  lake,  on  the  occasion 
of  the  second  miraculous  draught  of  fishes,  when  he  floundered  through  the 
water,  and  clasped  Christ's  feet.  He  did  not  say  then,  "  Depart  from  me, 
for  I  am  a  sinful  man,  O  Lord  ! "  He  had  said  that  before  on  a  similar 
occasion,  when  he  felt  his  sin  less;  but  knew  that  the  best  place  for  the 
denier  was  with  his  head  on  Christ's  bosom. 

So,  if  we  have  parted  from  our  Friend,  there  should  be  no  time  lost  ere 
we  go  back.  May  it  be  with  us  all  that  we  walk  with  God,  so  that  at  last 
the  great  promise  may  be  fulfilled  about  us,  "  that  we  shall  walk  with  Him 
in  white,"  being,  by  His  love,  accounted  "  worthy,"  and  so  "  follow,"  and 
keep  company  with,  "  the  Lamb  whithersoever  He  goeth." 

325 


THE  REFUGE  OF  THE  DEVOUT  SOUL. 

For  Thou,  O  Lord,  art  my  Refuge ! — Psalm  xci.  9. 

--        V    01    This  cry  of  the  devout  soul,  recognising  God  as  its  Asylum 
November  21.         1    tt  •  ..  ^  .-  c  A    ^^ 

and    Home,    comes   m   response    to   a   revelation   of  God  s 

nlessing  and  to  large  words  of  promise.  Let  us  be  sure  that  we  are 
hearkening  to  the  voice  with  which  He  speaks  through  our  daily  circum- 
stances as  well  as  by  the  unmistakeable  revelation  of  His  will  and  heart  in 
Jesus  Christ.  And  then  let  us  be  sure  that  no  word  of  His  that  comes 
fluttering  down  from  the  heavens,  meaning  a  benediction  and  enclosing 
a  promise,  shall  fall  at  our  feet  ungathered  and  unregarded,  or  shall  be 
trodden  into  the  dust  by  our  careless  heels.  The  manna  lies  all  about  us; 
let  us  see  that  we  gather  it.  Turn  His  promises  into  your  creed,  and 
whatever  He  has  declared  in  the  sweet  thunder  of  His  voice,  loud  as  the 
voice  of  many  waters,  and  melodious  as  harpers  harping  with  their  harps, 
do  you  take  for  your  profession  of  faith  in  the  faithful  promises  of  your  God. 

This  cry  of  the  devout  soul  suggests  to  me  that  our  response  ought  to 
be  the  eslablishment  of  a  close  personal  relation  between  us  and  God. 
"  Thou,  O  Lord,  art  my  Refuge."  We  must  isolate  ourselves  and  stand, 
God  and  we,  alone  together — at  heart-grips,  we  grasping  His  hands,  and 
He  giving  Himself  to  us — if  the  promises  which  are  sent  down  into  the 
world  for  all  who  will  make  them  theirs  can  become  ours.  They  are  made 
payable  to  your  order  ;  you  must  write  your  name  on  the  back  before  you 
get  the  proceeds.  There  must  be  what  our  good  old  Puritan  forefathers 
used  to  call,  in  somewhat  hard  language,  "the  appropriating  act  of  faith," 
in  order  that  God's  richest  blessings  may  be  of  any  use  to  us.  Put  out 
your  hand  to  grasp  them,  and  say  "  mine,"  not  "  ours."  The  thought  of 
others  as  sharing  in  them  will  come  afterwards,  for  he  who  has  once 
realised  the  absolute  isolation  of  the  soul  and  has  been  alone  with  God, 
and  in  solitude  has  taken  God's  gifts  as  his  very  own,  is  he  who  will  feel 
fellowship  and  brotherhood  with  all  who  are  partakers  of  like  precious 
faith  and  blessings.  The  "ours"  will  come  ;  but  you  must  begin  with  the 
"mine" — "  fiiy  Lord  and  7?iy  God."  "  He  loved  ?fie,  and  gave  Himself  for 
me."  Just  as  when  the  Israelites  gathered  on  the  banks  of  the  Red  Sea, 
and  Miriam  and  the  maidens  came  out  with  songs  and  timbrels,  though 
their  hearts  throbbed  with  joy,  and  music  rang  from  their  lips  for  national 
deliverance,  their  hymn  made  the  whole  deliverance  the  property  of  each, 
and  each  of  the  chorus  sang,  "The  Lord  is  my  Strength  and  my  Song,  He 
also  is  become  my  Salvation,"  so  we  must  individualise  the  common 
blessing.  Every  poor  soul  has  a  right  to  the  whole  of  God ;  and  unless 
a  man  claims  all  the  Divine  nature  as  his,  he  has  little  chance  of  possessing 
the  promised  blessings. 

This  cry  of  the  devout  soul  recognises  God  as  He  to  wliom  we  must  go 
because  we  need  a  refuge.  Only  he  who  knows  himself  to  be  in  danger 
bethinks  himself  of  a  refuge.  It  is  only  when  we  know  our  danger 
and  defencelessness  that  God,  as  the  Refuge  of  our  souls,  becomes  precious 
to  us.  So,  underlying,  and  an  essential  part  of,  all  our  confidence  in  God 
is  the  clear  recognition  of  our  own  necessity.  The  sense  of  our  own 
emptiness  must  precede  our  grasp  of  Plis  fulness. 

326 


GOD'S  ANSWER  TO  THE  SOUL'S  CRY. 

Who  is  he  that  will  harm  you,  if  ye  be  followers  of  that  which  is  good. — 
I  Peter  iii.  13. 

jj  h  2"  "^^^  y°^  ^^'^^  notice  that  there  are  two  dwelling-places 
spoken  of  in  the  91st  Psalm?  "  Thou  hast  made  the  Most 
High  thy  habitation,"  "  There  shall  no  plague  come  nigh  thy  dwelling  "  ;  or, 
literally  translated,  as  in  the  Revised  Version,  "  a  tent  " — a  particular  kind 
of  abode.  The  same  word,  "habitation,"  is  employed  in  the  90th  Psalm 
— "dwelling-place."  Beside  that  venerable  and  ancient  abode  that  has 
stood  fresh,  strong,  incorruptible,  and  unaffected  by  the  lapse  of  millenniums, 
there  stands  the  little  transitory  canvas  tent  in  which  our  earthly  lives  are 
spent.  We  have  two  dwelling-places.  By  the  body  we  are  brought  into 
connection  with  this  frail,  evanescent,  illusory  outer  world,  and  we  try 
to  make  our  homes  out  of  shifting  cloud-wrack,  and  dream  that  we  can 
compel  mutability  to  become  immutable,  that  we  may  dwell  secure. 
W^e  need  a  better  dwelling-place  than  earth  and  that  which  holds  to  earth. 
We  have  God  Himself  for  our  true  Home.  Never  mind  what  becomes 
of  the  tent  as  long  as  the  mansion  stands  firm.  Do  not  let  us  be  saddened, 
though  we  know  that  it  is  canvas,  and  that  the  walls  will  soon  rot  and 
must  some  day  be  folded  up  and  borne  away,  if  we  have  the  Rock  of  Ages 
for  our  dwelling-place. 

But  the  wide  scope  and  the  paradoxical  completeness  of  the  promise 
itself,  instead  of  being  a  difficulty,  point  the  way  to  its  true  interpretation. 
"  There  shall  no  plague  come  nigh  thy  dwelling" — and  yet  we  are  smitten 
down  by  all  the  woes  that  afFxict  humanity.  "No  evil  shall  befalthee" 
— and  yet  "  all  the  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to"  are  dealt  out  sometimes  with  a 
more  liberal  hand  to  them  who  abide  in  God  than  to  them  who  dwell  only 
in  the  tent  upon  earth.  What  then  ?  Is  God  true,  or  is  He  not  ?  Did 
this  Psalmist  mean  to  promise  the  very  questionable  blessing  of  escape 
from  all  the  good  of  the  discipline  of  sorrow  ?  Is  it  true,  in  the  un- 
conditional sense  in  which  it  is  often  asserted,  that  "prosperity  is  the 
blessing  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  adversity  of  the  New  "  ?  I  think  not ; 
and  I  am  sure  that  this  Psalmist,  when  he  said  "  there  shall  no  evil  befal 
thee,  nor  any  plague  come  nigh  thy  dwelling,"  was  thinking  exactly  the 
same  thing  which  Paul  had  in  his  mind  when  he  said,  "All  things  work 
together  for  good  to  them  that  love  God,  to  them  that  are  called  according 
to  His  purpose. "  If  I  make  God  my  Refuge,  I  shall  get  something  a  great 
deal  better  than  escape  from  outward  sorrow — namely,  an  amulet  which 
will  turn  the  outward  sorrow  into  joy.  The  bitter  water  will  still  be  given 
me  to  drink,  but  it  will  be  filtered  water,  out  of  which  God  will  strain  all 
the  poison,  though  He  still  leaves  plenty  of  the  bitterness  in  it  ;  for  bitter- 
ness is  a  tonic.  The  evil  that  is  in  the  evil  will  be  taken  out  of  it,  in  the 
measure  in  which  we  make  God  our  Refuge,  and  "all  will  be  right  that 
seems  most  wrong"  when  we  recognise  it  to  be  "  His  sweet  will."  Nothing 
can  be  "  evil "  which  knits  me  more  closely  to  God  ;  and  whatever  tempest 
drives  me  to  His  breast,  though  all  the  four  winds  of  the  heavens  strove 
on  the  surface  of  the  sea,  it  will  be  better  for  me  than  calm  weather  that 
entices  me  to  stray  farther  away  from  Him. 

Z^7 


THE   EXALTED   CHRIST. 

So  then  the  Lord  Jesus,  after  He  had  spoken  unto  them,  was  received  up 
into  Heaven,  and  sat  down  at  the  right  hand  of  God. — Mark  xvi.  19. 

•NT        V-  00    How  strangely  calm  and  brief  this  record  of  so  stupendous 
NovemDCr  23.  ,  ^  ■r<       ^  ^  ^  11. 

an  event  !     Do  these  sparing  and  reverent  words  sound  to 

you  like  the  product  of  a  devout  imagination,  embellishing  with  legend  the 

facts  of  history  ?     To  me  their  very  restrainedness,   calmness,    matter-of- 

faclness,  if  I  may  so  call  it,  is  a  strong  guarantee  that  they  are  the  utterance 

of  an  eye-witness,   who  verily  saw   what   he    tells   so   simply.     There   is 

something  sublime  in  the  contrast  between  the  magnificence  and  almost 

inconceivable  grandeur  of  the  thing  communicated,  and  the  quiet  words, 

so  few,  so  sober,  so  wanting  in  all  detail,  in  which  it  is  told. 

That  stupendous  fact  of  Christ  sitting  at  the  right  hand  of  God  is  the 
one  that  should  fill  the  present  for  us  all,  even  as  the  Cross  should  fill  the 
past,  and  the  coming  for  Judgment  should  fill  the  future.  So  for  us 
the  one  central  thought  about  the  present,  in  its  loftiest  relations,  should 
be  the  throned  Christ  at  God's  right  hand. 

We  are  taught  to  believe,  according  to  His  own  words,  that  in  His 
ascension  Christ  was  but  returning  whence  He  came,  and  entering  into  the 
"glory  which  He  had  with  the  Father  before  the  world  was."  And  that 
impression  of  a  return  to  His  native  and  proper  abode  is  strongly  conveyed 
to  us  by  the  narrative  of  His  ascension.  Contrast  it  for  instance  with  the 
narrative  of  Elijah's  rapture,  or  with  the  brief  reference  to  Enoch's 
translation.  The  one  was  taken  by  God  up  into  a  region  and  a  state 
which  he  had  not  formerly  traversed  ;  the  other  was  borne  by  a  fiery 
chariot  to  the  heavens  ;  but  Christ  slowly  sailed  upwards,  as  it  were,  by 
His  own  inherent  power,  returning  to  His  abode,  and  ascending  up  where 
He  was  before. 

But  whilst  this  is  one  side  of  the  profound  fact,  there  is  another  side. 
What  was  new  in  Christ's  return  to  His  Father's  bosom  ?  This,  that  He 
took  His  manhood  with  Him.  It  was  the  Everlasting  Son  of  the  Father, 
the  Eternal  Word,  which  from  the  beginning  "was  with  God  and  was 
God,"  that  came  down  from  heaven  to  earth  to  declare  the  Father  ;  but 
it  was  the  Incarnate  Word,  the  Man  Christ  Jesus,  that  went  back  again. 
This  mo5t  blessed  and  wonderful  truth  is  taught  with  emphasis  in  His  own 
words  before  the  council,  "Ye  shall  see  the  Son  of  7iian  sitting  on  the 
right  hand  of  power."  Christ,  then,  to-day  bears  a  human  body;  not, 
indeed,  the  "body  of  His  humiliation,"  but  the  body  of  His  glory,  which 
is  none  the  less  a  true  corporeal  frame,  and  necessarily  requires  a  locality. 
His  ascension,  whithersoever  He  may  have  gone,  was  the  true  carrying  of 
a  real  humanity,  complete  in  all  its  parts,  Body,  Soul,  and  Spirit,  up  to 
the  very  Throne  of  God. 

Where  that  locality  is  it  is  bootless  to  speculate.  Scripture  says  that 
He  ascended  up  "far  above  all  heavens";  or,  as  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  has  it,  in  the  proper  translation,  the  High  Priest  "is  passed 
through  the  her.vens,"  as  if  all  this  visible  material  creation  was  rent 
asunder  in  order  that  lie  might  soar  yet  higher  beyond  its  limits,  wherein 
reign  mutation  and  decay.  But  wheresoever  that  place  may  be,  there  ts 
a  place  in  which  now,  with  a  human  body  as  well  as  a  human  spirit, 
Christ  is  sitting  at  the  right  hand  of  God. 

328 


OUR   BROTHER   IN   HEAVEN. 

In  My  Father's  House  are  many  mansions  ;  if  it  were  not  so,  I  would 
have  told  you  ;  for  I  go  to  prepare  a  place  for  you. — John  xiv.  2. 

Let  us  thankfully  think  how,  in  the  profound  language  of 
Novem'ber  24.    ^     .  ./   ,        x-  •      r  im      1 

bcnpture,    'the    I'orerunner   is   for   us   entered     ;  how,  m 

some   mysterious   manner,    of  which    we   can   but    dimly   conceive,    that 

entrance  of  Christ  in  His  complete  humanity  into  the  highest  heavens  is 

the  preparation  of  a  place  for  us.     As  if,  vidthout  His  presence  there,  there 

were  no  entrance  for  human  nature  within  that  state,  and  no  power  in  a 

human  foot  to  tread  upon  the  crystal  pavements  of  the  Celestial  City,  but  as 

if,  where  He  is,  there  the  path  is  permeable,  and  the  place  native  to  all 

that  love  and  trust  Him. 

Stand,  therefore,  with  these  disciples,  as  they  gazed  upon  their  ascended 
Saviour,  and  looking  upwards  as  the  cloud  receives  Him  out  of  our  sight, 
our  faith  follows  Him,  still  our  Brother,  still  clothed  with  humanity,  still 
wearing  a  bodily  frame ;  and  we  say,  as  we  lose  Him  from  our  vision, 
"  What  is  man?"  Capable  of  being  lifted  to  the  most  intimate  participa- 
tion in  the  glories  of  Divinity,  and  thou^^h  he  be  poor  and  weak  and  sinful 
here,  yet  capable  of  union  and  assimilation  with  the  Majesty  that  is  on 
high.  For  what  Christ's  body  is,  the  bodies  of  them  that  love  and  serve 
Him  shall  surely  be,  and  He,  the  Forerunner,  is  entered  there  for  us,  that 
we,  too,  in  our  turn,  may  pass  into  the  light,  and  walk  in  the  full  blaze  of 
the  Divine  glory,  as  of  old  the  children  in  the  furnace,  unconsumed, 
because  companioned  by  "  One  like  unto  the  Son  of  man." 

The  exalted  Christ,  sitting  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  is  the  pattern  of 
what  is  possible  for  humanity,  and  the  prophecy  and  pledge  of  what  will  be 
actual  for  all  that  love  Him  and  bear  the  image  of  Him  upon  earth  that 
they  may  be  conformed  to  the  image  of  His  glory,  and  be  with  Him  where 
He  is.  What  firmness,  what  reality,  what  solidity  this  thought  of  the 
bodily  exalted  Christ  gives  to  the  else '  dim  and  vague  conceptions  of  a 
heaven  beyond  the  stars  and  beyond  our  present  experience  !  I  believe 
that  no  doctrine  of  a  future  life  has  strength  and  substance  enough  to  survive 
the  agonies  of  our  hearts  when  we  part  from  our  dear  ones,  the  fears  of 
our  spirits  when  we  look  into  the  unknown,  inane  future  for  ourselves, 
except  only  this  which  says  Heaven  is  Christ  and  Christ  is  Heaven,  and 
points  to  Him  and  says,  "Where  He  is,  there,  and  that,  also  shall  His 
servants  be." 

329 


THE   RESTING    SAVIOUR. 

Looking  unto  Jesus,  the  Author  attd  Perfecter  of  our  faith,  who  for  the 
joy  that  was  set  before  Him  endured  the  Cross,  despising  the  shatne,  and 
hath  sat  doivn  at  the  right  hand  of  the  throne  of  God. — Heb.  xii.  2, 

It  is  finished  ! — John  xix.  30. 

,  „,  The  disciples'  vision  of  their  ascended  Lord  expresses 
absolute  repose  alter  sore  conflict.  It  is  the  same  tnought 
which  is  expressed  in  those  solemn  Egyptian  colossal  statues  of  deified 
conquerors,  elevated  to  mysterious  union  with  the  god,  and  yet  men  still, 
sitting  before  their  temples  in  perfect  stillness,  with  the  mighty  hands  lying 
quiet  on  the  restful  limbs  ;  with  calm,  faces  out  of  which  toil  and  passion 
and  change  seem  to  have  melted,  gazing  out  with  open  eyes  as  over  a  silent 
prostrate  world.  So,  with  the  Cross  behind,  with  all  the  agony  and  weari- 
ness of  the  arena,  the  dust  and  the  blood  of  the  struggle  left  beneath,  He 
"sittcth  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  the  Father  Almighty."  The  rest  of  the 
Christ  after  His  Cross  is  parallel  with,  and  carries  the  same  meaning  as,  the 
rest  of  God  after  the  Creation.  Why  do  we  read  "He  rested  on  the 
seventh  day  from  all  His  works"?  Did  the  Creative  Arm  grow  weary ? 
Was  there  toil  for  the  Divine  nature  in  the  making  of  a  universe  ?  Doth 
He  not  speak  and  it  is  done?  Is  not  the  calm,  erlbrlless  forth-putting  of 
Plis  will  the  cause  and  the  means  of  Creation?  Does  any  shadow  of 
weariness  steal  over  that  life  which  lives  and  is  not  exhausted  ?  Does  the 
bush  consume  in  burning  ?  Surely  not.  He  rested  from  His  works,  not 
because  He  needed  to  recuperate  strength  after  action  by  repose,  but 
because  the  works  were  perfect  ;  and  in  sign  and  token  that  His  ideal  was 
accomplished,  and  that  no  more  was  needed  to  be  done.  And,  in  like 
manner,  the  Christ  rests  after  His  Cross,  not  because  He  needed  repose 
even  after  that  terrible  effort,  and  was  panting  after  His  race,  and  so  had  to 
sit  there  to  recover,  but  in  token  that  His  work  was  finished  and  perfected  ; 
that  all  which  He  had  come  to  do  was  done  ;  and  in  token,  likewise,  that 
the  P'ather,  too,  beheld  and  accepted  the  finished  work.  Therefore,  the 
session  of  Christ  at  the  right  hand  of  God  is  the  proclamation  from  the 
Heaven  of  what  He  shouted  with  His  last  dying  breath  upon  the  Cross  : 
*'  It  is  finished  ! "  It  is  the  declaration  that  the  world  has  had  all  done  for 
it  that  Heaven  can  do  for  it.  It  is  the  declaration  that  all  which  is  needed 
for  the  regeneration  of  humanity  has  been  lodged  in  the  very  heart  of  the 
race,  and  that  henceforward  all  that  is  required  is  the  evolving  and  the 
development  of  the  consequences  of  that  perfect  work  which  Christ  offered 
upon  the  Cross.  So,  the  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  contrasts  the 
priests  who  stood  "daily  ministering  and  offering  oftentimes  the  same 
sacrifices"  which  "can  never  take  away  sin,"  with  the  fact  that  "this 
Man,  after  He  had  offered  one  sacrifice  for  sins  for  ever,  sat  down  at  the 
right  hand  of  God  "  ;  testifying  thereby  that  His  Cross  is  the  complete, 
sufficient,  perpetual  atonement  and  satisfaction  for  the  sins  of  the  whole 
world.  So  we  have  to  look  back  to  that  past  as  interpreted  by  this  present, 
to  that  Cross  as  commented  upon  by  this  Throne,  and  to  see  in  it  the 
perfect  work  which  any  human  soul  may  grasp,  and  which  all  human  souls 
need,  for  their  acceptance  and  forgiveness. 

330 


OUR   INTERCEDING   PRIEST. 

Wherefore  also  He  is  able  to  save  to  the  uttermost  them  that  draw  near 
unto  God  through  Hun,  seeing  He  ever  liveth  to  make  intercession  for  them.. 
For  such  a  High  Priest  became  us,  holy,  guileless,  undefded,  separate  from. 
sinners,  and  made  higher  than  the  heavens,  who  needeth  not  daily,  like  those 
high  priests,  to  offer  up  sacrifices,  first  for  His  own  sins,  and  then  for  the 
sins  of  the  people  :  for  this  He  did  once  for  all,  when  He  offered  up 
Himself. — Heb.  vii.  25-27. 

So  the  Scripture  declares.  The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
over  and  over  again  reiterates  that  thought  that  we  have  a 
Priest  that  has  passed  into  the  heavens,  there  to  appear  in  the  presence  of 
God  for  us.  And  the  Apostle  Paul,  in  that  great  linked  climax  in  the 
eighth  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  has  it,  *'  Christ  that  died,  yea  ! 
rather,  that  is  risen  again,  who  is  even  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  who  also 
maketh  intercession  for  us."  There  are  deep  mysteries  connected  with  that 
thought  of  the  intercession  of  Christ.  It  does  not  mean  that  the  Divine 
heart  needs  to  be  won  to  love  and  pity.  It  does  not  mean  that  in  any  mere 
outward  and  formal  fashion  He  pleads  with  God,  and  softens  and  placates 
the  Infinite  and  Eternal  love  of  the  Father  in  the  heavens.  It,  at  least, 
plainly  means  this,  that  He,  our  Saviour  and  Sacrifice,  is  for  ever  in  the 
presence  of  God,  presenting  His  own  blood  as  an  element  in  the  Divine 
dealing  v/ith  us,  modifying  the  incidence  of  the  Divine  law,  and  securing, 
through  His  own  merits  and  intercession,  the  outflow  of  blessings  upon  our 
heads  and  hearts.  It  is  not  a  complete  statement  of  Christ's  work  for  us 
that  He  died  for  us.  He  died  that  He  might  have  somewhat  to  offer.  He 
lives  that  He  may  be  our  Advocate  as  well  as  our  Propitiation  with  the 
Father.  And  just  as  the  high  priest  once  a  year  passed  within  the  curtain, 
and  there  in  the  solemn  silence  and  solitude  of  the  holy  place,  sprinkled  the 
blood  that  he  bore  thither,  not  without  trembling,  and  but  for  a  moment 
permitted  to  stay  in  the  aAvfuI  Presence,  thus,  but  in  reality  and  for  ever, 
with  the  joyful  gladness  of  a  Son  in  His  "  own  calm  home.  His  habitation 
from  eternity,"  Christ  abides  in  the  Holy  Place  ;  and,  at  the  right  hand  of 
the  Majesty  of  the  Heavens,  lifts  up  that  prayer,  so  strangely  compact  of 
authority  and  submission:  "Father,  I  will  that  these  whom  Thou  hast 
given  Me  be  with  Me  where  I  am."  The  Son  of  Man  at  the  right  hand  of 
God  is  our  Intercessor  with  the  Father.  "Seeing,  then,  that  we  have  a 
great  High  Priest  that  is  passed  through  the  Heavens,  let  us  come  boldly  to 
the  Throne  of  Grace." 

331 


THE  EVER-ACTIVE  HELPER  OF  THE  SAINTS. 

Thou  hast  ascended  on  high,  Thou  hast  led  Thy  captivity  captive  ;  Thou 
hast  received  gifts  among  men,  yea,  aniong  the  rebellious  also,  that  the  Lord 
God  might  divcll  "with  them. — PsALM  Ixviii.  iS. 

'N'ovember  27  '^-^^  *' right  hand  of  God"  is  the  Omnipotent  energy  of 
God  ;  and  howsoever  certainly  the  language  of  Scripture 
requires  for  its  full  interpretation  that  we  should  firmly  hold  that  Christ's 
glorified  body  dwells  in  a  place,  we  are  not  to  omit  the  other  thought,  that 
to  sit  at  the  right  hand  also  means  to  wield  the  immortal  energy  of  that 
Divine  nature  over  all  the  field  of  the  Creation  and  in  every  province  of 
His  dominion.  So  that  the  ascended  Christ  is  the  ubiquitous  Christ  ;  and 
He  who  is  "at  the  right  hand  of  God"  is  wherever  the  power  of  God 
reaches  throughout  His  whole  universe. 

Remember  that  it  was  once  given  to  a  man  to  look  through  the  opened 
heavens  (through  which  Christ  had  "  passed  ")  and  to  "  see  tlie  Son  of  man 
standing  (not  sitting)  at  the  right  hand  of  God."  V/hy  to  the  dying  proto- 
martyr  was  there  granted  that  vision  thus  varied?  Wherefore  was  the 
attitude  changed  but  to  express  the  swiftness,  the  certainty  of  His  help,  and 
the  eager  readiness  of  the  Lord,  who  starts  to  His  feet,  as  it  were,  to  succour 
and  to  sustain  His  dying  servant  ? 

And  so  we  may  take  that  great  joyful  truth  that,  both  as  receiving  gifts 
for  man  and  bestowing  gifts  upon  them,  and  as  working  by  His  providence 
in  the  world,  and  on  the  wider  scale  for  the  well-being  of  His  children  and 
of  the  Church,  the  Christ  that  sits  at  the  right  hand  of  God  wields,  ever 
with  eager  cheerfulness,  all  the  powers  of  omnipotence  for  our  well-being, 
if  we  love  and  trust  Him.  We  may  look  quietly  upon  all  perplexities  and 
compHcations,  because  the  hands  that  were  pierced  for  us  hold  the  helm 
and  the  reins,  because  the  Christ  who  is  our  Brother  is  the  King,  and  sits 
supreme  at  the  centre  of  the  universe.  Joseph's  brethren  that  came  up  in 
their  hunger  and  their  rags  to  the  land,  and  found  tlieir  brother  next  the 
throne,  v/ere  startled  with  a  great  joy  of  surprise,  and  fears  were  calmed 
and  confidence  sprang  in  their  hearts.  Shall  not  we  be  restful  and  confident 
when  our  Brother,  the  Son  of  man,  sits  ruling  all  things?  "We  see  not 
yet  all  things  put  under"  us;  "but  we  see  Jesus,"  and  that  is  enough. 
Therefore,  set  your  affections  on  things  above.  Our  hearts  travel  where 
our  dear  ones  are.  Oh,  how  strange  and  sad  it  is  that  professing  Christians, 
whose  lives,  if  they  are  Christians  at  all,  have  their  roots  and  are  hid  with 
Christ  in  God,  should  turn  so  few,  so  cold  thoughts  and  loves  thither  ! 
Surely,  "where  your  treasure  is,  there  will  your  heart  be  also."  Surely,  if 
Christ  is  your  treasure,  you  will  feel  that  with  Plim  is  home,  and  that  this  is 
a  foreign  land  !  "  Set  your  affections,"  then,  "on  things  above,"  while  life 
lasts ;  and  when  it  is  ebbing  away,  perhaps  to  our  eyes,  too.  Heaven  may  be 
opened,  and  the  vision  of  the  Son  of  man  standing  to  receive  and  to 
welcome  us  may  be  granted,  and  when  it  has  ebbed  away,  His  will  be  the 
first  voice  to  welcome  us,  and  He  will  lift  us  to  share  in  His  glorious  rest, 
according  to  Ilis  own  wondrous  promise,  "To  him  that  overcomcth  will  I 
grant  to  sit  with  Me  in  My  throne,  even  as  I  also  overcame,  and  am  set 
down  with  My  Father  in  His  throne." 

332 


WHAT  LASTS! 

Whether  there  be  prophecieSj  they  shall  be  done  away ;  whether  there  be 
tongues,  they  shall  cease ;  whether  there  be  knowledge,  it  shall  be  done  away. 
.  .  .  But  now  abideth  faith,  hope,  love,  these  three. — i  CoR.   xiii.  8,  13. 

November  28  ^^  discern  the  run  of  the  Apostle's  thought  best  by  thus 
omitting  the  intervening  verses  and  connecting  these  two. 
The  part  omitted  is  bat  a  buttress  of  what  has  been  stated  in  the  former 
of  our  two  verses  ;  and  when  we  thus  unite  them,  there  is  disclosed  plainly 
the  Apostle's  intention  of  contrasting  two  sets  of  things,  three  in  each. 
The  one  is  prophecies,  tongues,  knowledge  ;  the  other,  faith,  hope,  charity. 
There  also  comes  out  distinctly  that  the  point  mainly  intended  by  the 
contrast  is  the  transiency  of  the  one  and  the  permanence  of  the  other.  I 
ask  this  question:  What  will  drop  away?  Paul  answers,  "Prophecies, 
tongues,  knowledge."  Now  these  three  were  all  extraordinary  gifts  be- 
longing to  the  present  phase  of  the  Christian  life.  But  inasmuch  as  these 
gifts  were  the  heightening  of  natural  capacities  and  faculties,  it  is  perfectly 
legitimate  to  enlarge  the  declarations  and  to  use  these  three  words  in  their 
widest  signification.  So  understood  they  come  to  this,  that  all  our  present 
modes  of  apprehension  and  of  utterance  are  transient,  and  will  be  left  behind. 

"Knowledge,  it  shall  cease,"  and  it  shall  cease  because  the  perfect 
absorbs  into  itself  the  imperfect,  as  the  inrushing  tide  will  obliterate  the 
little  pools  in  the  rocks  on  the  sea-shore.  "We  shall  know  face  to  face," 
which  is  what  philosophers  call  by  intention.  Here  our  knowledge  creeps 
from  point  to  point,  painfully  amassing  facts,  and  thence,  with  many 
hesitations  and  errors,  groping  its  way  towards  principles  and  laws.  Here 
it  is  imperfect,  with  many  a  gap  in  its  circumference  ;  or  like  the  thin  red 
line  which  shows  the  traveller's  route  across  a  boundless  prairie,  or  like  the 
spiders  thread  in  the  telescope,  stretched  athwart  the  blazing  disc  of  the 
sun — "but  then  face  to  face."  Incomplete  knowledge  shall  be  done  away; 
and  so  many  of  its  objects  will  drop,  so  much  of  what  makes  the  science  of 
earth  will  be  antiquated  and  effete.  What  would  the  handloom  weaver's 
knowledge  of  how  to  throw  his  shuttle  be  worth  in  a  weaving-shed  with  a 
thousand  looms  ?  Just  so  much  will  the  knowledges  of  earth  be  when  we 
get  yonder. 

Modes  of  utterance  will  cease.  With  new  experiences  will  come  new 
methods  of  communication  ;  as  a  man  can  speak  and  beasts  can  only  growl 
or  bark,  so  a  man  in  heaven,  with  new  experiences,  will  have  a  new 
method  of  communication.  The  comparison  between  that  mode  of 
utterance  which  we  now  have  and  that  which  we  then  possess  will  be  like 
the  difference  between  the  old-fashioned  semaphore,  that  used  to  wave  about 
clumsy  wooden  arms,  in  order  to  convey  intelligence,  and  the  telegraph. 
Think,  then,  of  a  man  going  into  that  future  life,  and  saying,  "  /knew  more 
about  Sanscrit  than  anybody  that  ever  lived  in  Europe"  ;  "/  sang  sweet 
song"  ;  "/was  a  past  master  in  philology,  grammars,  and  lexicons"  ;  "/ 
was  a  great  orator."  "Tongues  shall  cease,"  and  the  modes  of  utterance 
that  belonged  to  earth  will  drop  away  and  be  of  no  more  use. 

If  these  things  are  true  with  regard  even  to  the  highest  form  of  these  high 
and  noble  things,  how  much  more  and  more  solenmly  true  are  they  with 
regard  to  the  aims  and  objects  which  most  of  us  have  in  view  !  They  will 
all  drop  av/ay,  and  we  shall  be  left,  stripped  of  what,  for  most  of  us,  has 
made  the  whole  interest  and  activity  of  our  lives. 

333 


THE  LOVE  OF  THE  DEPARTING  CHPaST. 

Jesus  knozving  that  His  hour  was  conie  that  He  should  depart  out  of  this 
world  unto  the  Father,  having  loved  His  own  which  were  in  the  world,  He 
loved  them  unto  the  end. — ^JOHN  xiii.  I. 

Kovember  29.  ^^^^  latter  half  of  St.  John's  Gospel,  which  begins  with 
these  words,  is  the  Holy  of  HoMes  of  the  New  Testament. 
Nowhere  else  do  the  blended  lights  of  our  Lord's  superhuman  dignity  and 
human  tenderness  shine  with  such  lambent  brightness.  Nowhere  else  is 
His  speech  at  once  so  simple  and  so  deep.  Nowhere  else  have  we  the  heart 
of  God  so  unveiled  to  us.  On  no  other  page,  even  of  the  Bible,  have  so 
many  eyes,  glistening  with  tears,  looked  and  had  the  tears  dried.  The 
immortal  words  which  Christ  spoke  in  that  upper  chamber  are  His  highest 
self-revelation  in  speech,  even  as  the  Cross  to  which  they  led  up  is  His  most 
perfect  self-revelation  in  act. 

Many  good  commentators  prefer  to  read,  *'  He  loved  them  unto  the 
uttermost,''^  rather  than  "unto  the  ettd^^ — so  taking  them  to  express  the 
depth  and  degree  rather  than  the  permanence  and  perpetuity  of  our  Lord's 
love.  And  that  seems  to  me  to  be  by  far  the  worthier  and  the  nobler 
meaning,  as  well  as  the  one  which  is  borne  out  by  the  usual  signification 
of  the  expression  in  other  Greek  authors.  It  is  much  to  know  that  the 
emotions  of  these  last  moments  did  not  interrupt  Christ's  love.  It  is  even 
more  to  know  that  in  some  sense  they  perfected  it,  giving  even  a  greater 
vitalit)'  to  its  tenderness  and  amore  precious  sweetness  to  its  manifestations. 
So  understood,  the  words  explain  for  us  why  it  was  that  in  the  sanctity  of 
the  upper  chamber  there  ensued  the  marvellous  act  of  the  foot-washing, 
the  marvellous  discourses  which  follow,  and,  the  climax  of  all,  that  High- 
Priesily  prayer.  They  give  utterance  to  a  love  which  Christ's  consciousness 
at  that  solemn  hour  tended  to  shapen  and  to  deepen.  "  He  knew  that  His 
hour  was  come."  All  His  life  was  passed  under  the  consciousness  of  a  Divine 
necessity  laid  upon  Him,  to  which  He  lovingly  and  cheerfully  yielded 
Himself.  On  His  lips  there  are  no  words  more  significant,  and  few  more 
frequent,  than  that  Divine  "I  must  !"  "It  behoves  the  Son  of  man  to 
do"  this,  that,  and  the  other — yielding  to  the  necessity  imposed  by  the 
Father's  will,  and  sealed  by  His  own  loving  resolve  to  be  the  Saviour  of 
the  world.  And,  in  like  manner,  all  through  His  life  He  declares  Himself 
conscious  of  the  hours  which  mark  the  several  crises  and  stages  of  His 
mission.  They  come  to  Him  and  He  discerns  them.  No  external  power 
can  coerce  Him  to  any  act  till  the  hour  come.  No  external  power  can  hinder 
Him  from  the  act  when  it  comes.  When  the  hour  strikes.  He  hears  the 
phantom  sound  of  the  bell,  and,  hearing.  He  obeys.  And  thus,  at  the  last 
and  supreme  moment,  to  Him  it  dawned  unqucslionQ,ble  and  irrevocable. 
How  did  He  meet  it?  Whilst,  on  the  one  hand,  there  was  the  shrinking 
of  which  we  have  such  pathetic  testimony  in  the  broken  prayer  that  He 
Himself  amended  :  "  Father  !  save  Me  from  this  hour.  .  .  .  Yet  for  this 
cause  came  I  unto  this  hour."  There  is  a  strange,  triumphant  joy  that 
blends  with  the  shrinking  that  the  decisive  hour  is  at  last  come— not  that 
now  the  hour  had  come  for  suffering  or  death  or  bearing  the  sins  of  the 
world — all  v, hich  aspects  of  it  were,  nevertheless,  present  to  llim,  as  we 
know,  but  that  now  He  was  soon  to  leave  ail  the  wurid  beneath  Him  and 
to  return  to  the  Father. 

334 


THE  DIVINE-HUMAN   SAVIOUR. 

This  man  receiveth  sinners,  and  eateth  with  them. — Luke  xv.  2. 

_  h  30  Does  not  the  love  of  Jesus  help  us  to  realise  how  truly  bone 
of  our  bone  and  flesh  of  our  flesh,  and  bearing  a  heart 
thrilling  with  all  innocent  human  emotions,  that  Divine  Saviour  was?  We, 
like  Him,  have  known  what  it  is  to  feel,  because  of  approaching  separation 
from  dear  ones,  the  need  for  a  tenderer  tenderness.  At  such  moments  the 
masks  of  use  and  wont  drop  away,  and  we  are  eager  to  find  some  word,  to 
put  our  whole  souls  into  some  look,  our  whole  strength  into  one  clinging 
embrace  that  may  express  all  our  love,  and  may  be  a  joy  to  two  hearts  for 
ever  after  to  remember.  The  Master  knew  that  longing,  and  felt  the  pain 
of  separation  :  and  He,  too,  yielded  to  the  human  impulse  which  makes 
the  thought  of  parting  the  key  to  unlock  the  hidden  chambers  of  the  most 
jealously-guarded  heart,  and  let  the  shyest  of  its  emotions  come  out  for 
once  into  the  daylight.  But  there  is  not  only  in  this  a  wonderful  expression 
of  the  true  humanity  of  the  Christ,  but  along  with  that  a  suggestion  of 
something  more  sacred  and  deeper  still.  For  surely,  amidst  all  the  parting 
scenes  that  the  world's  literature  has  enshrined,  amidst  all  the  examples  of 
self-oblivion  at  the  last  moment,  when  a  martyr  has  been  the  comforter  of 
his  weeping  friends,  there  are  none  that  without  degradation  to  this  can  be 
set  by  the  side  of  this  supreme  and  unique  instance  of  self-oblivion.  Did 
not  Christ,  for  the  sake  of  that  handful  of  poor  people,  first  and  directly, 
and  for  the  rest  of  us  afterwards,  of  course,  secondarily  and  indirectly,  so 
suppress  all  the  natural  emotions  of  these  last  moments  as  that  their 
absolute  absence  is  unique  and  singular,  and  points  onwards  to  sometiiing 
more — viz.,  that  this  Man,  who  was  susceptible  of  all  human  affections,  and 
loved  us  with  a  love  which  is  not  merely  high  above  our  grasp,  absolute, 
perfect,  changeless,  and  Divine,  but  with  a  love  like  our  own  human 
affection,  had  also  more  than  a  man's  heart  to  give  us,  and  gave  us  more, 
when,  that  He  might  comfort  and  sustain,  He  crushed  down  Himself  and 
went  to  the  Cross  with  words  of  tenderness  and  consolation  and  encourage- 
ment for  others  upon  His  lips.  And  if  the  prospect  only  sharpened  and 
perfected,  nor  interrupted  for  one  instant  the  flow  of  His  love,  the  reality 
has  no  power  to  do  aught  else.  In  the  glory,  when  He  reached  it,  He 
poured  out  the  same  loving  heart ;  and  to-day  He  looks  down  upon  us  with 
the  same  face  that  bent  over  the  table  in  the  upper  room,  and  the  same 
tenderness  flows  to  us.  When  John  saw  his  Master  next,  after  His 
ascension,  amidst  the  glories  of  vision  in  his  rocky  Patmos,  though  His 
face  was  as  the  sun  shineth  in  his  strength,  it  was  the  old  face.  Though 
His  hand  bare  the  stars  in  a  cluster,  it  was  the  hand  that  had  been  pierced 
with  the  nails.  Though  the  breast  was  girded  with  the  golden  girdle  of 
sovereignty  and  of  priesthood,  it  was  the  breast  on  which  John's  happy  head 
had  lain;  and  though  the  "Voice  was  as  the  sound  of  many  waters,"  it 
soothed  itself  to  a  murmur,  gentle  as  that  with  which  the  tideless  sea  about 
Him  rippled  upon  the  silvery  sand  when  He  said,  "Fear  not  ...  I  am 
the  First  and  the  Last."  "  Knowing  that  He  goes  to  the  Father  He  loves 
to  the  uttermost,"  and,  being  with  the  Father,  He  still  so  loves. 

335 


THE  FAITHFUL  LOVE   OF   THE  CHRIST. 

Hereby  know  we  love^  because  He  laid  down  His  life  for  us, — 
I  John  iii.  i6. 

I  The  love  of  Jesus  Christ  is  a  love  which  is  faithful  to  the 

obligations  of  its  own  past.  Having  loved,  He  loves. 
Because  He  had  been  a  certain  thing,  therefore  He  is  and  He  shall  be  that 
same.  That  is  an  argument  that  implies  Divinity.  About  nothing  human 
can  we  say.  Because  it  has  been,  therefore  it  sliall  be.  Alas  !  about  much 
that  is  liuman  we  have  to  say  the  converse,  Because  it  has  been,  therefore 
it  will  cease  to  be.  And  though,  blessed  be  God  !  they  are  few  and  they 
are  poor  who  have  had  no  experience  in  their  lives  of  human  hearts  whose 
love  in  the  past  has  been  such  that  it  manifestly  is  for  ever,  yet  we  cannot 
with  the  same  absolute  confidence  say  about  one  another,  even  about  the 
dearest,  "Having  loved,  he  loves."  But  we  can  about  this  Christ.  There 
is  no  exhaustion  in  that  great  stream  that  pours  out  from  His  heart ;  no 
diminution  in  its  flow. 

The  terror,  the  agony,  the  shame,  the  mystetious  burden  of  a  world's 
sins  were  to  be  laid  upon  Him.  All  these  elements  are  submerged,  as  it 
were,  and  become  less  conspicuous  than  the  one  thought  of  leaving  behind 
all  the  limitations  and  the  humiliations  and  the  compelled  association 
with  evil  which,  like  a  burning  brand  laid  upon  a  tender  skin,  was  an 
hourly  and  momentary  agony  to  Him,  and  soaring  above  them  all,  unto 
His  own  calm  home,  His  habitation  from  eternity  with  the  Father,  as  He 
had  been  before  th©  world  was.  How  strange  this  blending  of  shrinking 
and  of  eagerness,  of  sorrow  and  of  joy,  of  human  trembling  consciousness 
of  impending  death  and  of  triumi)hant  consciousness  of  the  approach  of 
the  hour  when  the  Son  of  man,  even  in  His  bitterest  agony  and  deepest 
humiliation,  should,  paradoxically,  be  glorified,  and  should  leave  the 
world  to  go  unto  the  Father  ! 

They  tell  us  that  the  central  light  of  our  system,  that  great  sun  itself, 
pouring  out  its  rays  exhausts  its  warmth  ;  and  were  it  not  continually 
replenished  must  gradually,  and  even  though  continually  replenished,  will 
one  day  cease  to  flame,  and  be  a  dead,  cold  mass  of  ashes.  But  this 
central  Light,  this  heart  of  Christ,  which  is  the  Sun  of  the  World,  shall 
endure  like  the  sun  ;  and  after  the  sun  is  cold,  His  love  shall  last  for  ever. 
He  pours  it  out,  and  there  is  none  the  less  to  give.  There  is  no  bankruptcy 
in  His  expenditure,  no  exhaustion  in  His  effort,  no  diminution  in  His  stores. 
"Thy  mercy  endureth  for  ever"  ;  "Thou  hast  loved,  therefore  Thou  wilt 
love,"  is  a  syllogism  for  time  and  for  eternity  on  which  we  may  build  and 
rest  secure. 

336 


TO  THE   UTTERMOST. 
In  His  love  and  in  His  pity  He  redeemed  them. — Is  A.  Ixiii.  9. 

The  love  of  Christ  is  a  love  which  has  special  tenderness 
towards  its  own.  *'  Having  loved  His  own,  He  loved  them 
to  the  uttermost."  These  poor  men  who,  with  all  their  errors,  did  cleave 
to  Ilim  ;  who,  in  some  dim  way,  understood  somewhat  of  His  greatness 
and  His  sweetness — and  do  you  and  I  do  more  ? — who,  with  all  their  sins, 
yet  were  true  to  Him  in  the  main  ;  who  had  surrendered  very  much  to 
follow  Him,  and  had  identified  themselves  with  Him — were  they  to  have 
no  special  place  in  His  heart  because  in  that  heart  the  whole  world  lay  ? 
Is  there  any  reason  why  we  should  be  afraid  of  saying  that  the  universal 
love  of  Jesus  Christ,  which  gathers  into  His  bosom  all  mankind,  does  fall 
with  special  tenderness  and  sweetness  upon  those  who  have  made  Him 
theirs  and  have  surrendered  themselves  to  be  His  ?  Surely  it  must  be  that 
He  has  special  nearness  to  those  that  love  Him  ;  surely  it  is  reasonable  that 
He  should  have  special  delight  in  those  who  try  to  remember  Him ;  surely  it 
is  only  what  one  might  expect  of  Him  that  He  sliould  in  a  special  manner 
honour  the  drafts,  so  to  speak,  of  those  that  have  confidence  in  Him,  and  have 
pinned  their  whole  Hves  upon  Him!  Surely,  because  the  sun  shines  down 
upon  durghills  and  all  impurities,  that  is  no  reason  why  it  should  not  lie 
with  special  brightness  on  the  polished  mirror  that  reflects  its  lustre !  Surely, 
because  Jesus  Christ  loves — blessed  be  His  Name  ! — the  pubhcans  and 
the  harlots,  and  the  outcasts  and  the  sinners,  that  is  no  reason  why  He 
should  not  bend  with  special  tenderness  over  those  who,  loving  Him,  try  to 
serve  Him,  and  have  set  their  whole  hopes  upon  Him.  The  rainbow 
strides  across  the  sky,  but  there  is  a  rainbow  in  every  little  dewdrop  that 
hangs  glistening  on  the  blades  of  grass.  And  there  is  nothing  limited, 
nothing  sectional,  nothing  narrow  in  the  proclamation  of  a  special  tender- 
ness of  Christ  towards  His  own,  when  you  accompany  with  that  truth  this 
other,  that  all  men  are  besought  by  Him  to  come  into  that  circle  of  **  His 
own,"  and  that  only  they  themselves  shut  any  men  out  therefrom.  Blessed 
be  His  Name  !  the  whole  world  dwells  in  His  love.  But  there  is  an  inner 
chamber  in  which  He  discovers  all  His  heart  to  those  who  find  in  that 
heart  their  Heaven  and  their  all.  *'He  came  to  His  own,"  in  the  wider 
sense  of  the  word,  and  "His  own  received  Him  not"  ;  but  also,  "having 
loved  His  own.  He  loved  them  unto  the  end."  There  are  textures  and 
lines  which  can  only  absorb  some  of  the  rays  of  light  in  the  spectrum  ;  some 
that  are  only  capable  of  taking,  so  to  speak,  the  violet  rays  of  judgment  and 
of  wrath,  and  some  who  open  their  hearts  for  the  ruddy  brightness  at  the 
other  end  of  the  line.  Do  you  see  to  it,  brother,  that  you  be  of  that 
inner  circle  who  receive  the  whole  Christ  into  their  hearts,  and  to  whom 
He  can  unfold  the  fulness  of  His  love. 

337  « 


THE  SHEPHERD'S   LOVE   FOR  THE   SCATTERED   FLOCK. 

I  pray  not  that  Thou  shouldest  take  them  front  the  world,  but  that  Thou 
shouldtst  keep  them  from  the  evil  one. — John  xvii.  15. 

December  3  ^^^  necessities  and  dangers  of  the  friends  of  Christ  made 
His  love  specially  tender.  "He  loved  His  own  which  were 
in  the  world."     And  so  loving  them,  "loved  them  to  the  uttermost." 

We  have,  running  through  these  precious  discourses  recorded  by 
John,  many  allusions  to  the  separation  which  was  to  ensue,  and  to  His 
leaving  His  followers  in  circumstances  of  pecuHar  peril,  defenceless  and 
solitary.  "  I  come  unto  Thee,  and  am  no  more  in  the  world,"  says  He  in 
the  final  high-priestly  prayer,  "but  these  are  in  the  world."  "Holy 
Father !  keep  them  through  Thine  own  Name."  The  same  contrast 
between  the  certain  security  of  the  Shepherd  and  the  troubled  perils  of  the 
scattered  flock  seems  to  be  in  the  words  just  quoted  (John  xiii.  i),  and 
suggests  a  sweet  and  blessed  reason  for  the  special  tenderness  with  which 
He  looked  upon  them.  As  a  dying  father  on  his  deathbed  may  yearn  over 
orphans  that  he  is  leaving  defenceless,  so  Christ  here  is  represented  as 
conscious  of  an  accession  even  to  the  tender  longings  of  Plis  heart  when  He 
thought  of  the  loneliness  and  the  dangers  to  which  His  followers  were  to 
be  exposed. 

Ah  !  it  seems  a  strange  contrast  between  the  emperor  sitting  throned 
there  between  the  purple  curtains  and  the  poor  athletes  wrestling  in  the 
arena  below ;  it  seems  strange  to  think  that  a  loving  Master  has  gone  up 
into  the  mountain,  and  has  left  His  disciples  to  toil  in  rowing  on  the  stormy 
sea  of  life  ;  but  the  contrast  is  only  apparent — for  you  and  I,  if  we  love 
and  trust  Him,  are  with  Him  in  the  heavenly  places  even  whilst  we  toil 
here  ;  and  He  is  with  us,  working  with  us,  even  whilst  He  sitteth  at  the 
right  hand  of  God. 

We  may  be  sure  of  this,  that  that  love  ever  increases  its  manifestations 
according  to  our  deepening  necessities.  The  darker  the  night  the  more 
lustrous  the  stars.  The  deeper,  the  narrower,  the  savager  the  Alpine 
gorge,  usually  the  fuller  and  the  swifter  the  stream  that  runs  through  it. 
And  the  more  enemies  and  fears  gather  round  about  us,  the  sweeter  will  be 
the  accents  of  our  Comforter's  voice,  and  the  fuller  will  be  the  gifts  of 
tenderness  and  grace  with  which  He  draws  near  to  us.  Our  sorrows, 
dangers,  necessities,  are  doors  through  which  His  love  can  come  nigh. 

So  we  have  had  experience  of  sweet  and  transient  human  love  ;  we  have 
had  experience  of  changeful  and  ineffectual  love.  Turn  away  from  them 
all  to  this  immortal  deep  heart  of  Christ's,  welling  over  with  a  love  which 
no  change  can  affect,  which  no  separation  can  diminish,  which  no  sin  can 
provoke,  which  becomes  greater  and  tenderer  as  our  necessities  increase  ; 
and  ask  Him  to  fill  your  hearts  with  that,  that  you  may  know  the  length 
and  breadth  and  depth  and  height  of  that  love  which  passeth  knowledge, 
and  so  be  filled  with  all  the  fulness  of  God. 

338 


THE   POSSESSION   OF  THE   SPIRIT  OF  MIGHT. 

That  He  zvould  grant  you,  according  to  the  riches  cf  His  glory,  that  ye 
iruiy  be  strengthened  with  might  through  His  Spirit  in  the  inward  nian. — ■ 
ErH.  iii.  i6. 

_.  .  ^  It  is  a  miserably  inadequate  conception  of  Christianity,  and 
ecsm  er  ^^^^  ^.^^.^  ^,^^^  .^  bestows,  and  the  blessings  that  it  intends  for 
men,  when  it  is  limited,  as  it  practically  is,  by  a  large  number — I  might 
almost  say  the  majority — of  professing  Christians  to  a  simple  means  of 
altering  their  relation  to  the  past  and  to  the  broken  law  of  God  and  of 
righteousness.  Thanks  be  to  His  Name !  His  great  gift  to  the  world  begins 
in  each  individual  case  with  the  assurance  that  all  the  past  is  cancelled,  and 
that  He  gives  that  great  gift  of  forgiveness,  which  can  never  be  too  highly 
estimated  unless  it  is  forced  out  of  its  true  place  as  the  introduction,  and 
made  to  be  the  climax  and  the  end  of  His  gifts.  I  do  not  know  what 
Christianity  means,  unless  it  means  that  you  and  I  are  forgiven  for  a 
purpose  ;  that  the  purpose,  if  I  may  so  say,  is  something  in  advance  of  the 
means  towards  the  purpose,  the  purpose  being  that  we  should  be  filled  with 
all  the  strength  and  righteousness  and  supernatural  life  granted  to  us  by  the 
Spirit  of  God. 

It  is  all  well  that  we  should  enter  into  the  vestibule  :  there  is  no  other 
path  unto  the  Throne  but  through  the  vestibule  ;  but  do  not  let  us  forget 
that  the  good  news  of  forgiveness,  though  we  need  it  day  by  day,  and  per- 
petually repeated,  is  but  the  introduction  to,  and  porch  of,  the  Temple,  and 
that  beyond  it  there  towers,  if  I  cannot  say  a  loftier,  yet  I  may  say  a  further, 
gift,  even  the  gift  of  a  Divine  hfe  like  His,  from  whom  it  comes,  and  of 
which  it  is  in  reality  an  effluence  and  a  spark.  The  true  characteristic  gift 
of  the  Gospel  is  the  gift  of  a  new  power  to  a  sinful,  weak  world— a  power 
which  makes  the  feeble  strong,  and  the  strongest  as  an  angel  of  God. 

Oh  !  we  who  know  how,  "if  any  power  we  have,  it  is  to  ill"  ;  we  who 
understand  the  weakness,  the  unaptness,  of  our  spirits  to  any  good  and 
their  strength  to  every  vagrant  evil  that  comes  upon  them  to  tempt  them, 
should  surely  recognise  as  a  Gospel  in  very  deed  that  which  proclaims  to  us 
that  the  "  everlasting  God,  the  Lord,  the  Creator  of  the  ends  of  the  earth," 
who  Himself  "fainteth  not,  neither  is  weary,"  hath  yet  a  loftier  manifesta- 
tion of  His  strength-giving  power  than  that  which  is  visible  in  the  heavens 
above;  where,  "because  He  is  strong  in  might,  not  one  faileth."  That 
Heaven,  the  region  of  calm  completeness,  of  law  unbroken,  and  therefore 
of  power  undiminished,  affords  a  lesser  and  dimmer  manifestation  of  His 
strength  than  the  work  that  is  done  in  the  hell  of  a  human  heart  that  has 
w^andered  and  is  brought  back,  that  is  stricken  with  the  weakness  of  the 
fever  of  sin,  and  is  drawn  again  into  the  strength  of  obedience  and  the 
omnipotence  of  dependence.  It  is  much  to  say,  "For  that  He  is  strong  in 
might,  not  one  of  these  faileth"  ;  it  is  more  to  say,  "  He  giveth  power  to 
them  that  have  failed  ;  and  to  them  that  have  no  might  Pie  increaseth 
strength."  The  Gospel  is  the  gift  of  pardon  for  holiness,  and  its  inmost 
and  most  characteristic  bestowment  is  the  bestowment  of  a  new  power  for 
obedience  and  service. 

339 


POWER  FROM   ON   HIGH. 

Ye  shall  receive  power,  when  the  Holy  Ghost  is  come  upon  you. — Acts  i.  8. 

-.        ,      ,      Power  is  given  to  us  all  through  the  eift  of  the  Divine  Spirit. 
December  &.     ^^^  ^,^^.^  ^^^,^^^  ^^  ^^_^^  g^^j^.^^  -^  ^^^  ,,  gp-^..^  ^^  niighl.''     Christ 

spoke  to  us  about  being  "endued  with  power  from  on  high"  ;  the  last  of 
Kis  promises  that  dropped  from  His  lips  upon  earth  was  the  promise  that 
His  followers  should  receive  the  power  of  the  Spirit  coming  upon  them. 
Wheresoever  in  the  early  histories  we  read  of  a  man  that  was  full  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  we  read  that  he  was  "fiill  of  power."  God  hath  given 
us  the  "  spirit  of  power,"  which  is  also  the  spirit  ''  of  love  and  of  a  sound 
mind."  So  the  strength  that  we  must  have,  if  we  have  strength  at  all,  is 
the  strength  of  a  Divine  Spirit,  not  our  own,  that  dwells  in  us,  and  works 
through  us. 

And  there  is  nothing  in  that  which  need  startle  or  surprise  any  man 
who  believes  in  a  living  God  at  all,  and  in  the  possibility,  therefore,  of  a 
connection  between  the  Great  Spirit  and  all  the  human  spirits  which  are 
His  children.  I  would  maintain,  in  opposition  to  many  modern  concep- 
tions, the  actual  supernatural  character  of  the  gift  that  is  bestowed  upon 
every  Christian  soul.  My  reading  of  the  New  Testament  is,  that  as  dis- 
tinctly above  the  order  of  material  nature  as  is  any  miracle  is  the  gift  that 
flows  into  a  believing  heart.  There  is  a  direct  passage  between  God  and 
my  spirit :  it  lies  open  to  His  touch  ;  all  the  paths  of  its  deep  things  can 
be  trodden  by  Him.  You  and  I  act  upon  one  another  from  without ;  He 
acts  upon  us  within.  We  wish  one  another  blessings ;  He  gives  the 
blessings.  We  try  to  train,  to  educate,  to  inchne,  and  dispose  by  the 
presentation  of  motives  and  the  urging  of  reasons  ;  He  can  plant  in  a  heart 
by  His  own  Divine  husbandry  the  seed  that  shall  blossom  into  immortal 
life.  And  so  the  Christian  Church  is  a  great,  continual,  supernatural 
community  in  the  midst  of  the  material  world  ;  and  every  believing  soul, 
because  it  possesses  something  of  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ,  has  been  the  seat 
of  a  miracle  as  real  and  true  as  when  He  said,  "  Lazarus,  come  forth  !" 
Precisely  this  teaching  does  our  Lord  Himself  present  for  our  acceptance 
when  He  sets  side  by  side,  as  mutually  illustrative,  as  belonging  to  the 
same  order  of  supernatural  phenomena,  the  hour  cometh  when  the  dead 
shall  hear  the  voice  of  the  Son  of  God,  and  they  that  hear  shall  hve,  which 
is  the  supernatural  resurrection  of  souls  dead  in  sin,  "and  the  hour  cometh 
when  all  that  are  in  the  graves  shall  hear  His  voice,  and  shall  come  forth," 
which  is  the  future  resurrection  of  the  body  in  obedience  to  His  will. 

So,  Christian  friend,  do  you  set  clearly  before  you  this:  that  God's 
purpose  with  you  is  only  begun  when  He  has  forgiven  you,  that  He 
forgives  you  for  a  design,  that  it  is  a  means  to  an  end,  and  that  you  have 
not  reached  the  conception  of  the  large  things  He  intends  for  you  unless 
you  have  risen  to  this  great  thought — He  means  and  wishes  that  you  should 
be  strong  with  the  strength  of  His  own  Divine  Spirit. 

340 


THE   DIVINE   INDWELLER. 
He  abiddh  with  you,  and  shall  be  in  you. — ^JoHN  xiv.  17. 

December  6  '^"^  Divine  strength  has  its  seat  in,  and  is  intended 
to  influence  the  whole  of,  the  inner  life.  "  Strenfrthencd 
with  might  by  His  Spirit  in  the  inner  man."  That,  I  suppose,  does  not 
mean  the  new  creation  througti  faith  in  Jesus  Christ — what  the  Apostle 
calls  "the  new  man" — but  it  means  simply  what  another  Apostle  calls 
"the  hidden  man  of  the  heart,"  and  only  refers  to  the  distinction  which 
we  all  draw  between  the  outward,  visible,  material  frame,  and  the  unseen 
self  tliat  animates  and  informs  it.  It  is  this  inner  self,  then,  in  which  the 
Spirit  of  God  is  to  dwell,  and  into  which  it  is  to  breathe  strength.  Tiie 
leaven  is  hid  deep  in  three  measures  of  meal  until  the  whole  be  leavened. 

And  the  point  to  mark  is,  that  the  whole  inward  region  which  makes 
up  the  true  man  is  the  field  upon  which  this  Divine  Spirit  is  to  work.  It 
is  not  a  bit  of  your  inward  life  that  is  to  be  hallowed  ;  it  is  not  any  one 
aspect  of  it  that  is  to  be  strengthened, — but  it  is  the  whole  intellect,  affections, 
desires,  tastes,  powers  of  attention,  combination,  memory,  will.  The 
whole  inner  man  in  all  its  corners  is  to  be  filled,  and  to  come  under  the 
influence  of  this  power,  "  until  there  be  no  part  dark,  as  when  the  bright 
shining  of  a  candle  giveth  thee  light." 

So  for  this  Divine  Indweller  there  is  no  part  of  my  life  that  is  not  patent 
to  His  tread.  There  are  no  rooms  of  the  house  of  my  spirit  into  which 
He  is  not  to  go.  Let  Him  come  with  the  master-key  in  His  hand  into 
all  the  dirn  chambers  of  your  feeble  nature ;  and  as  life  is  light  in  the  eye, 
and  colour  in  the  cheek,  and  deftness  in  the  fingers,  and  strength  in  the 
arm,  and  pulsation  in  the  heart,  so  He  will  come  and  strengthen  your 
understandings,  and  make  you  able  for  loftier  tasks  of  intellect  and  of 
reason,  than  you  can  face  in  your  unaided  strength  ;  and  He  will  dwell 
in  your  affections,  and  make  them  vigorous  to  lay  hold  upon  the  holy  things 
that  are  above  their  natural  inclination,  and  will  make  it  certain  that 
"  their  reach  shall  not  be  beyond  their  grasp,"  as,  alas  !  it  so  often  is  in 
the  sadness  and  disappointments  of  human  loves.  And  He  will  come  into 
that  feeble,  vacillating,  wayward  will  of  yours,  that  is  only  obstinate  in  its 
adherence  to  the  low  and  the  evil,  as  some  foul  creature,  that  one  may  try 
to  wrench  away,  digs  its  claws  into  corruption  and  holds  on  by  that ;  He 
will  lift  your  will,  and  make  it  fix  upon  the  good  and  abominate  the  evil, 
and  through  the  whole  being  He  will  pour  a  great  tide  of  strength  whicli 
shall  cover  all  the  weakness.  He  will  be  like  some  subtle  elixir  which, 
talzen  in-u  the  lips,  steals  through  a  pallid  and  wasted  frame,  and  brings 
back  a  glow  to  the  cheek  and  a  lustre  to  the  eye  and  a  swiftness  to  the 
brain,  and  power  to  the  whole  nature.  Or  as  some  plant,  drooping  and 
flagging  beneath  the  hot  rays  of  the  sun,  when  it  has  the  scent  of  water 
given  to  it,  will,  in  all  its  parts,  stiffen  and  erect  itself,  so  this  Divin" 
Spirit  will  go  searching  every  corner  of  the  inner  man,  illuminating  and 
invigorating  all. 

341 


STRENGTHENED  WITH  ALL  MIGHT. 

Strengthened  with  all  power,  acccrding  to  the  might  of  His  glory,  unto 
all  patience  and  longsufftring  with  joy, — COL.  i.  II. 

December  7  ^^  ^°  P^'^^  "^  Paul's  letters  does  He  rise  to  a  higher  level 
than  in  his  prayers,  and  none  of  his  prayers  are  fuller  of 
fervour  than  this  wonderful  series  of  petitions.  They  open  out  one  in'o 
the  other  like  some  majestic  suite  of  apartments  in  a  great  palace-temple, 
each  leading  into  a  loiiier  and  more  spacious  hall,  each  drawing  nearer 
the  presence-chamber,  until  at  last  we  stand  there.  Take  his  prayer  in 
Ephesians.  Roughly  speaking,  that  prayer  is  divided  into  four  petitions, 
of  which  each  is  the  cause  of  the  following  and  the  result  of  the  preceding  : 
— "  That  He  would  grant  you,  according  to  the  riches  of  His  glory,  to  be 
strengthened  with  might  by  His  Spirit  in  the  inner  man."  That  is  the 
first.  "  In  order  that  Christ  may  dwell  in  your  hearts  by  faith."  Such 
is  the  second  ;  the  result  of  the  first  and  the  preparation  for  the  third. 
*'That  ye,  being  rooted  and  grounded  in  love,  may  be  able  to  com];rehend 
with  all  saints,  .  .  .  and  to  know  the  love  of  Christ  which  passeth  know- 
ledge." Such  is  the  next  ;  and  all  lead  up  at  last  to  that  wonderful  desire 
beyond  which  nothing  is  possible — "that  ye  might  be  filled  with  all  the 
fulness  of  God."  Consider  that  great  thought  of  the  Divine  strength-giving 
power  which  may  be  bestowed  upon  every  Christian  soul.  God  means 
and  wishes  that  all  Christians  should  be  strong  by  the  possession  of  the 
Spirit  of  might. 

It  will  be  a  power  for  suffering.  Ah  !  unless  this  Divine  Spirit  were 
a  power  for  patience  and  endurance,  it  were  no  power  suited  to  us  poor 
men.  So  dark  at  times  is  every  life  ;  so  full  at  times  of  discouragements, 
of  dreariness,  of  sadness,  of  loneliness,  of  bitter  memories,  and  of  fading 
hopes  does  the  human  heart  become,  that  if  we  are  to  be  strong  we  must 
have  a  strength  that  will  manifest  itself  most  chiefly  in  this,  that  it  teaches 
us  how  to  bear,  how  to  weep,  how  to  submit. 

And  it  will  be  a  power  for  efi'"ort.  We  have  all  of  us,  in  the  discharge 
of  duty  and  the  resistance  of  temptation,  to  face  such  tremendous  antagonisms 
that  unless  we  have  grace  given  to  us  which  will  enable  us  to  resist,  we 
shall  be  overcome  and  swept  away.  God's  grace  from  the  Divine  Spirit 
within  us  does  not  absolve  us  from  the  fight,  but  it  fits  us  for  the  fight. 
It  is  not  given  in  order  that  holiness  may  be  won  without  a  struggle,  as 
some  people  seem  to  think,  but  it  is  given  to  us  in  order  that  in  the  struggle 
for  holiness  we  may  never  lose  "one  jot  of  heart  or  hope,"  but  may  be 
"able  to  withstand  in  the  evil  day,  and  having  done  all  to  stand." 

It  is  a  power  for  service.  "  Tarry  ye  in  Jerusalem  till  ye  be  endued 
with  power  from  on  high."  There  is  no  such  force  for  the  spreading  of 
Christ's  Kingdom  and  the  witness-bearing  work  of  His  Church  as  the 
possession  of  this  Divine  Spirit.  Plunged  into  that  fiery  baptism,  the 
selfishness  and  the  sloth,  which  stand  in  the  way  of  so  many  of  us,  are  all 
consumed  and  annihilated,  and  we  are  set  free  for  service  because  the 
bonds  that  bound  us  are  burnt  up  in  the  merciful  furnace  of  His  fiery 
power.  "  Ye  shall  be  strengthened  with  might  by  His  Spirit  in  the  inner 
man."  A  power  that  will  fill  and  flood  all  your  nature  if  you  will  let  it, 
nnd  will  make  you  strong  to  suffer,  strong  to  combat,  strong  to  serve  and 
to  witness  for  your  Lord. 

342 


GOD'S  BOUNDLESS  RICHES. 

That  in  the  ages  to  come  He  tntght  show  the  exceeding  riches  of  His  grace 
tn  kindness  toward  us  in  Jesus  Christ, — Eph.  ii.  7. 

-«  ,  Q  There  is  the  measure.  There  is  no  limit  except  the 
uncounted  wealth  of  His  own  self-manifestation,  the  flashing 
light  of  a  revealed  Divinity.  Whatsoever  there  is  of  splendour  in  that, 
whatsoever  there  is  of  power  there,  in  these,  and  in  nothing  this  side  of 
them,  lies  the  limit  of  the  possibilities  of  a  Christian  life.  Of  course,  there 
is  a  working  limit  at  each  moment,  and  that  is  our  capacity  to  receive  ;  but 
that  capacity  varies,  may  vary  indefinitely,  may  become  greater  and  greater 
beyond  our  count  or  measurement.  Our  hearts  may  be  made  more  and  more 
capable  of  God  ;  and  in  the  measure  in  which  they  are  capable  of  Him  they 
shall  be  filled  by  Him.  A  limit  which  is  always  shifting  is  no  limit  at  all. 
A  kingdom  the  boundaries  of  which  are  not  the  same  from  one  j^ear  to 
another,  by  reason  of  its  own  inherent  expansive  power,  may  be  said 
to  have  no  fixed  limits.  And  so  we  appropriate  and  enclose,  as  it  were, 
within  our  own  little  fence,  a  tiny  portion  of  the  great  prairie  that  rolls 
boundless  to  the  horizon.  But  to-morrow  we  may  enclose  more,  if  we  will, 
and  more  and  more  ;  and  so  ever  onwards.  For  all  that  is  God's  is  yours, 
and  He  has  given  you  His  whole  Self  to  use  and  to  possess  through  your 
faith  in  His  Son.  A  thimble  can  only  take  up  a  thimbleful  of  the  ocean, 
but  what  if  the  thimble  be  endowed  with  a  power  of  expansion  which  has 
no  term  known  to  men?  May  it  not,  then,  be  that  some  time  or  other  it 
shall  be  able  to  hold  so  much  of  the  infinite  depth  as  now  seems  a  dream  too 
audacious  to  be  realised.  So  it  is  with  us  and  God.  He  lets  us  come  into 
the  vaults,  as  it  were,  where  in  piles  and  masses  the  ingots  of  uncoined  and 
uncounted  gold  are  stored  and  stacked  ;  and  He  says,  "Take  as  much  as 
you  like  to  carry."     There  is  no  limit  except  the  riches  of  His  glory. 

Oh  !  when  one  contrasts  the  largeness  of  God's  promises  and  the 
miserable  contradiction  which  the  average  Christian  life  of  this  generation 
presents,  what  can  we  say  ?  "  Hath  His  mercy  clean  gone  for  ever  ?  Doth 
His  promise  fail  for  evermore  ?  "  Ye  weak  Christian  people,  born  weakling 
and  weak  ever  since,  open  your  mouths  wide  !  Rise  to  the  height  of  the 
expectations  and  the  desires  which  it  is  our  sin  not  to  cherish  ;  and  be  sure 
of  this,  as  we  ask  so  shall  we  receive.  "  Ye  are  not  straitened  in  God." 
Alas  !  alas  !  "ye  are  straitened  in  yourselves."  And  there  must  be  self- 
suppression  if  there  is  to  be  the  triumph  of  a  Divine  power  in  you.  You 
cannot  fight  with  both  classes  of  weapons.  The  human  must  die  if  the 
Divine  is  to  live.  The  life  of  nature,  self-dependence  on  self,  must  be 
weakened  and  subdued  if  the  life  of  God  is  to  overcome,  to  fill  you.  You 
must  be  able  to  say  "  Not  I  ! "  or  you  will  never  be  able  to  say  "  Christ 
liveth  in  me."  The  patriarch  that  overcame  halted  on  his  thigh  ;  and  all 
the  life  of  nature  was  lamed  and  made  impotent  that  the  life  of  grace  might 
overcome.  So  crush  self  by  the  power  and  for  the  sake  of  the  Christ,  if  you 
would  that  the  Spirit  may  bear  rule  over  you. 

343 


THE  HOLY  SPIRIT  OF  PROMISE. 

The  Holy  Spirit  of  pron^ise,  which  is  the  earnest  of  our  inheritance^  unto 
the  redemption  of  God's  own  possession. — Eph.  i.  14, 

_  ,  ^-  "The  Ploly  Spirit  of  promise,"  given  to  all  who  believe,  is 
here  declared  to  dwell  in  and  to  seal  believers  as  the 
"earnest"  of  their  "inheritance"  ;  whilst,  on  the  other  hand,  that  sealing 
is  declared  to  last  until — or,  as  seems  more  probably  the  rendering  of  the 
preposition  here,  to  be  done  with  a  view  unto — the  full  redemption  of  God's 
purchased  "  possession."  So  that  the  two  halves  of  the  thought  are  inten- 
tionally brought  together  in  these  words.  And  about  both  of  them — God's 
possession  of  us  and  our  possession  of  God — it  is  asserted  or  implied,  that 
they  are  partially  realised  here,  and  are  to  be  realised  more  fully  in  the  future. 

An  "earnest"  is  a  portion  of  the  estate  which  is  paid  over  to  the 
purchaser  on  the  completion  of  the  purchase,  as  the  token  that  all  is  his  and 
that  it  will  all  come  into  his  hands  in  due  time.  Like  that  part  of  a  man's 
wages  given  to  him  in  advance  when  he  is  engaged  ;  like  the  shilling  put 
into  the  hand  of  a  recruit  ;  like  the  half-crown  given  to  the  farm-servant  at 
the  hiring-fair  ;  like  the  bit  of  turf  that  in  some  old  ceremonials  used  to  be 
solemnly  presented  to  the  sovereign  on  his  investiture, — it  is  a  portion  of  the 
whole  possession,  the  same  in  kind,  but  a  very  tiny  portion,  which  yet 
carries  with  it  the  acknowledgment  of  ownership  and  the  assurance  of  full 
possession. 

So  the  "  Spirit  of  God  is  the  earnest  of  the  inheritance,"  a  small  portion 
of  it  granted  to  us  to-day,  and  the  pledge  that  all  shall  be  granted  in  the 
future.  And  the  same  idea  of  present  imperfection  is  suggested  in  the  cor- 
responding clause,  which  speaks  about  God's  entire  purchase  (for  there  is 
an  emphasis  in  the  Greek  word  in  the  original),  His  possession  as  also  a 
thing  of  the  future. 

We  possess  God  in  the  measure  in  which  we  know  Him,  love  Him,  and 
have  communion  and  sympathy  with  Him.  These  things — knowledge,  love, 
communion,  sympathy — make  a  very  real  and  a  very  precious  possession  of 
God  ;  and  he  who  has  God  thus  has  Him  as  truly,  though  not  as  perfectly, 
as  the  angels  in  heaven  that  burn  before  Plis  throne. 

But  though  that  is  true,  there  is  yet  another  aspect  of  this  possession  of 
God.  The  Holy  Spirit  of  promise  comes  to  every  man  that  believes  in 
Jesus  Christ,  and  enters  into  his  heart  and  becomes  his.  That  is  the  truest 
way  in  which  man  possesses  God.  The  greatest  gift  that  my  faith  brings 
down  to  me  from  heaven  is  the  gift  of  an  indwelling  Spirit — of  an  indwelling 
God.  For  the  Spirit  of  God  is  God.  He  that  has  God  in  his  heart  by  the 
dwelling  there,  in  mystic  reality,  of  the  Divine  Spirit  possesses  Him  as  truly 
as  he  possesses  love  or  memory,  imagination  or  hope. 

There  can  be  nothing  deeper,  nothing  greater,  nothing  more  real  in  the 
manner  of  possession,  than  the  possession  which  every  one  of  us  may  have 
of  an  indwelling  God  for  our  life  and  our  peace.  It  passes  all  human 
analogy.  Love  gives  us  the  ownership,  most  really  and  most  sweetly,  of  the 
hearts  that  we  love.  But,  after  all  the  yearning  desires  for  union,  and 
experience  of  oneness  in  sympathy,  the  awful  wall  of  partition  between 
spirits  remains  ;  and  life  may,  and  death  must,  separate — but  he  that  has 
God's  Divine  Spirit  with  him  has  God  for  the  life  of  his  life  and  the  soul 
of  his  soul.  And  we  possess  Him  when,  by  faith  in  Jesus  Christ,  the  Spirit 
of  God  dwells  in  our  hearts. 

344 


OUR   INCOMPLETE   POSSESSION   OF  GOD. 

Ye  have  not,  because  ye  ask  not.  Ye  ask,  and  receive  not,  because  ye 
ask  aniiss,  that  ye  tnay  spend  it  in  your  pleasures. — James  iv.  2,  3. 

DecemTber  10  ^^^  ^^^'^  ^^  Infinite  Spirit  to  dwell  with  us  ;  how  finite  and 
little  is  our  possession  of  it  !  The  Spirit  of  God  is  set  forth 
in  Scripture  under  the  symbol  of  "  a  rushing,  mighty  wind"  ;  and  you  and 
I  say  that  we  are  Christ's,  and  that  we  have  Him — how  does  it  come, 
then,  that  our  sails  flap  idly  on  the  mast,  and  we  lie  becalmed,  and  making 
next  to  no  progress  ?  The  Spirit  of  God  is  set  forth  in  Scripture  under  the 
symbol  of  "  flaming  tongues  of  fire"  ;  and  you  and  I  say  that  we  have  it 
— how  is  it,  then,  that  this  thick-ribbed  ice  is  round  our  hearts,  and  our  love 
is  all  so  tepid?  The  Spirit  of  God  is  set  forth  in  Scripture  under  the 
symbol  of  "  rivers  of  water  "  ;  and  you  and  I  say  that  we  possess  it — how 
is  it,  then,  that  so  much  of  our  hearts  and  of  our  natures  is  given  up  to 
barrenness  and  dryness  and  deadness  ?  The  present  possession  of  the 
best  of  us  is  but  a  partial  and  incomplete  possession. 

And  the  same  facts  of  wavering  faith  and  cold  affection,  of  imperfect 
consecration,  which  show  how  little  we  have  of  God,  show  likewise  how 
little  God  has  of  us.  We  say  that  we  are  His,  and  live  to  please  ourselves. 
We  profess  to  belong  to  another,  and  to  that  other  we  render  fragments — 
of  ourselves,  and  scarcely  even  fragments  of  our  time  and  of  our  efforts. 
His  !  and  yet  all  day  long  never  thinking  of  Him.  His  !  and  yet  from 
morning  till  night  never  refraining  from  a  thing  because  we  know  it  is  con- 
trary to  His  will,  or  spurred  to  do  a  thing  that  is  contrary  to  ours  because 
we  know  it  is  His.  His  !  and  yet  we  wallow  in  selfishness.  It  is  only  a 
little  corner  of  our  souls  that  really  belongs  to  God. 

I  do  not  forget  that  this  incompleteness  of  possession,  looked  at  in  both 
aspects,  is  to  a  certain  extent  inevitable,  and  must  go  with  us  all  through 
life.  And  so  do  not  let  any  of  us  rush  precipitately  to  the  conclusion  that 
we  are  not  Christians  because  we  find  what  poor  Christians  we  are.  Do 
not  let  us  say,  "  If  there  were  any  reality  in  my  faith,  it  would  be,  not  a 
dotted  line,  but  one  continuous  and  unbroken."  Do  not  let  us  write  bitter 
things  against  ourselves  because  we  find  that  we  have  only  got  "  the 
earnest  of  the  inheritance,"  and  that  the  inheritance  has  not  yet  come.  And, 
on  the  other  hand,  do  not  you  make  a  pillow  of  laziness  of  that  most 
certain  truth ;  nor  because  there  must  be  imperfection  always  in  the  Christian 
career  here,  apply  that  as  an  excuse  for  the  individual  instances  of  imper- 
fection as  they  crop  up.  You  know,  when  you  are  honest  with  yourself, 
that  each  breach  of  continuity  in  your  faith  and  obedience  might  have  been 
prevented  ;  you  know  that  there  was  no  reason  that  could  not  have  been 
overcome  for  any  failure  of  consecration  or  wavering  of  faith  or  act  of 
disobedience  and  rebellion  which  has  ever  marked  your  course.  Granted, 
imperfection  is  the  law,  but  also  remember  that  the  individual  instances  of 
imperfection  are  to  be  debited  not  to  lazu,  but  to  tis,  and  are  not  to  be 
lamented  over  as  inevitable,  though  painful,  issues  of  our  condition,  but  to 
be  confessed  as  sins.      *'  My  fault,  O  Lord  !  my  fault,  and  mine  only." 

345 


THE   IMPERFECT   PRESENT. 

Now  we  see  in  a  mirror^  darkly  ;  but  then  face  to  face  :  now  I  know  tn 
part ;  but  tlien  shall  I  know  even  as  also  I  have  been  known. — i  CoR.  xiii.  12. 

December  11.  '^"^  ^^^^^  °^  Christian  experience  are  such  as  that  they  in- 
evitably point  to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  a  life  beyond. 
All  that  is  good  and  blessed  about  religion,  our  faith,  the  joy  that  comes 
from  our  faith,  the  sweetness  of  communion,  the  aspiration  after  the  in- 
crease of  fellowship  with  Him, — all  these,  to  the  man  that  enjoys  them,  are 
the  best  proof  that  they  are  going  to  last  for  ever,  and  that  death  can  have 
no  power  over  them.  "  Like  thoughts,  their  very  sweetness  yieldeth  proof 
that  they  are  born  for  immortalit}'." 

To  love,  to  know,  to  reach  the  hands  out  through  the  shows  of  time  and 
sense,  and  to  grasp  an  unseen  reality  that  lies  away  beyond,  is,  to  any  man 
that  has  ever  experienced  the  emotion  and  done  the  thing,  one  of  the 
strongest  of  all  demonstrations  that  nothing  belonging  to  this  dusty  low 
region  of  the  physical  can  touch  that  immortal  aspiration  that  knits  him  to 
God  ;  but  that  whatsoever  may  befal  the  husk  and  shell  of  him,  his  faith,  his 
love,  his  obedience,  his  consecration,  these  at  least  are  eternal,  and  may 
laugh  at  death  and  the  grave.  And  I  believe  that  ever  to  the  men  that 
have  not  the  experience,  the  fact  of  religious  emotion,  the  fact  of  worship, 
ought  to  be  one  of  the  best  demonstrations  of  a  future  life. 

The  very  incompleteness  of  our  possession  of  God  and  of  God's 
possession  of  us  points  onwards  to,  and,  as  it  seems  to  me,  demands,  a 
future.  The  imperfection,  as  well  as  the  present  attainments  of  our 
Christian  experience,  proclaim  a  coming  time.  That  we  are  no  better  than 
we  are,  being  as  good  as  we  are,  seems  to  make  it  inconceivable  that  this 
evidently  half-done  job  is  going  to  be  broken  oft'  short  at  the  side  of  the  grave. 

Here  is  a  certain  force  at  work  in  a  man's  nature,  the  power  of  God's 
good  Spirit,  evidently  capable  of  producing  effects  of  entire  transformation. 
Such  being  the  case,  who,  looking  at  the  effects,  can  doubt  that  sometime 
and  somewhere  there  will  be  less  disproportion  between  the  two  ?  The 
engine  is  evidently  not  working  full  power.  The  characters  of  Christians 
at  the  best  are  so  inconsistent  and  contradictory  that  they  are  evidently  only 
in  the  making.  It  is  dear  that  we  are  looking  at  unfinished  work  ;  and 
surely  the  great  Master  Builder  who  has  laid  such  a  foundation-stone,  tried 
and  precious,  will  not  begin  to  build  and  not  be  able  to  finish  !  Every 
Christian  life,  at  its  best  and  noblest,  shows,  as  it  were,  the  ground  plan  of 
a  great  structure  partly  carried  out — a  bit  of  walling  up  here,  vacancy  there, 
girders  spanning  wide  spaces,  but  gaping  for  a  roof,  a  chaos  and  a  con- 
fusion. It  may  look  a  thing  of  shreds  and  patches,  and  they  that  pass  by 
the  way  begin  to  mock.  But  the  very  fact  that  it  is  incomplete  prophesies, 
to  wise  men,  of  the  day  when  the  headstone  shall  be  brought  with  shouting, 
and  the  flag  hoisted  on  the  roof-tree.  Fools  and  children,  says  the  proverb, 
should  not  see  half-done  work— certainly  they  should  not  judge  it. 

Wait  a  bit.  There  comes  a  time  when  tendencies  shall  be  facts,  and 
when  influences  shall  have  produced  their  appropriate  effects,  and  when 
alt  that  is  partial  and  broken  shall  be  consummate  and  entire  in  the  king- 
dom that  is  beyond  the  stars. 

Wait !  and  be  sure  that  the  good  and  the  bad,  so  strangely  blended  in 
Christian  experience,  are  alike  charged  with  the  prophecy  of  a  glorious  and 
perfect  future. 

346 


THE  FUTURE  THE  PERFECTING  OF  THE  PRESENT. 

U^ho  also  sealed  us,  and  gave  us  the  earnest  of  the  Spirit  m  our  hearts,-— 
2  Cor.  i.  22. 

December  12  T^E  "earnest"  points  onwards  to  an  inheritance  the  same 
in  kind,  but  immensely  greater  in  degree.  The  "  redemption 
of  the  possession  "  is  a  somewhat  singular  expression  ;  for  we  are  accustomed 
to  regard  the  great  act  of  redemption  as  aheady  passed  in  the  sacrifice  of 
Christ  upon  the  Cross.  But  the  expression  is  employed  here,  as  in  several 
other  places,  to  express  not  so  much  the  act  of  purchase,  the  paying  of  the 
price  of  our  salvation,  which  is  done  once  for  all  and  long  ago,  as  the 
historical  working  out  of  the  results  of  that  price  paid  in  the  entire  deliver- 
ance of  the  whole  nature  of  man  from  every  form  of  captivity  to  anytlmig 
that  would  prevent  his  full  possession  by  God. 

*'  We  shall  know  even  as  we  are  known."  **  Through  a  glass  darkly  ; 
but  then  face  to  face,"  says  Paul,  suggesting  great  changes  in  the  degree  of 
our  knowledge  of,  and  friendly  communion  with,  God,  but  also  seeming  to 
imply  some  unknown  changes  in  the  manner  of  our  beholding,  which  may 
be  connected  with  the  new  powers  of  that  "  body  of  glory  "  like  our  Lord's 
which  will  then  be  ours.  It  is  quite  conceivable  that  the  physical  universe 
may  have  quaUties  as  real  as  light  and  heat,  and  scent  and  sound,  which 
we  could  appreciate  if  we  had  other  senses  appropriate,  as  we  have  sight 
and  touch,  and  smell  and  hearing". 

And  so  it  is  quite  conceivable  that  when  clothed  upon  with  our  "house 
which  is  from  heaven,"  which  will  have  a  great  many  more  windows  in  it 
than  the  earthly  house  of  this  tabernacle,  which  is  built  for  stormy  weather, 
there  will  be  sides  and  aspects  of  the  Divine  nature  that  we  do  not  know 
anything  about  to-day  which  shall  be  communicable  and  communicated 
to  us. 

But  be  that  as  it  may,  a  deeper  knowledge,  a  fixed  love,  an  unbroken 
communion,  with  all  distractions  and  interruptions  swept  clean  away  for 
ever,  so  that  we  shall  dwell  for  evermore  in  the  House  of  the  Lord, — these 
are  the  plain  elements  which  make  the  very  Heaven  of  heavens,  and  which 
ought  to  make  the  joy  of  our  hope.  In  the  measure  in  which  we  know  and 
love  Him,  in  that  measure  shall  we  be  known  and  loved  by  H^im.  He  and 
we  shall  be  so  interwoven  as  that  we  shall  be  inseparable.  We  shall  cleave 
to  God  and  God  shall  cleave  to  us. 

Oh,  how  small  and  insignificant  all  other  notions  of  a  future  life  are  as 
compared  with  that !  The  accidents  of  locality  and  circumstance  should 
ever  be  kept  subordinate  in  the  pictures  whicli  imagination  may  draw  of 
what  is  beheld  through  the  gates  ajar  by  little  pilgrims  in  the  unseen.  The 
representations  which  seem  to  aim  at  making  another  world  as  like  this 
one  as  may  be,  dwarf  its  greatness,  and  tend  to  obscure  the  conditions  of 
entering  into  its  rest.  "It  doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be"  is  as 
much  a  revelation  as  "  when  He  shall  appear  we  shall  be  like  Him."  As 
a  great  painter  concentrates  finish  and  light  on  the  face  of  his  sitter,  and 
purposely  keeps  the  rest  of  the  picture  slight,  there  is  one  face  that  should 
fill  the  dim,  dark  curtain  of  the  future — the  face  of  Christ — and  all  else  may 
be  thrown  in  in  mere  sketchy  outline.  We  know  that  future  chiefly  by 
negations  and  by  symbols,  and  the  one  positive  fact  is  that  we  shall  have 
Him  and  He  will  possess  us. 

347 


AS  WE  SOW,   WE   REAP. 

They  that  plow  iniquity ^  and  sow  trouble  reap  the  same. — JOB  iv.  8. 
He  that  soweth  iniquity  shall  reap  calamity. — Proverbs  xxii.  8. 

Decembe  13  ^^  ^^  ^  solemn  thought  that  the  ultimate  perfect  possession  of 
and  by  God  is  evolved  from  a  germ  which  must  be  planted 
now  if  it  is  to  flourish  there.  "  The  child  is  father  of  the  man."  Every 
present  is  the  result  of  all  the  past ;  every  future  will  be  the  result  of  the 
past  and  the  present.  Everybody  admits  that  about  this  life,  but  there  are 
some  of  us  that  seem  to  forget  it  with  regard  to  another  world.  We  know 
too  little  of  t>.e  effect  that  is  produced  upon  men  by  the  change  of  death  to 
dogmatise  ;  but  one  may  be  quite  sure  that  the  law  of  continuity  will  go  on 
into  the  other  world.  Or,  to  put  it  into  plainer  English,  a  man  on  the 
other  side  of  the  grave  will  be  the  same  as  he  was  on  this  side.  The  line 
will  run  straight  on  ;  it  may  be  slightly  refracted  by  passing  from  an 
atmosphere  of  one  density  to  another  of  a  different,  but  it  will  be  very 
slightly.     The  main  direction  will  be  the  same. 

What  is  there  in  death  that  can  change  a  man's  will?  I  can  fancy 
death  making  an  idiot  wise,  because  idiocy  conies  from  physical  causes. 
I  can  fancy  death  giving  people  altogether  different  notions  of  the  folly 
of  sin  ;  but  I  do  not  know  anything  in  the  physical  fact  of  death,  or  in  the 
accompanying  alterations  that  it  produces  upon  spiritual  consciousness,  in 
so  far  as  they  are  known  to  us,  that  can  alter  the  dominant  bias  and  set 
of  a  man's  nature.  It  seems  to  me  more  likely  that  it  will  intensify  that 
dominant  bias,  whatever  it  is  ;  that  it  will  make  good  men  better  and  bad 
men  worse  v/hen  the  limitations  of  incomplete  organs  arc  gone.  At  all 
events,  do  not  you  run  risks  witti  such  a  very  shaky  hypothesis  as  that : 
but  remember  that  what  a  man  sows  he  shall  reap  ;  that  the  present  is  the 
parent  of  the  future,  and  that  unless  we  have  the  earnest  of  inheritance 
here,  and  pass  into  the  other  world  bearing  that  earnest  in  our  hands,  there 
seems  little  reason  why  we  should  expect  that,  when  we  stand  before  Him 
empty-handed,  we  can  claim  a  portion  therein. 

I  was  passing  a  little  town  garden  a  day  or  two  ago,  and  the  man  had 
got  a  young  v^^eeping  willow  that  he  had  put  in  the  plot  in  front  of  his 
door,  and  he  had  bent  down  its  branches  and  put  them  round  the  hoop  of 
an  old  wine-cask  to  teach  them  to  droop.  And  after  a  bit,  when  they  have 
been  set,  he  will  take  away  the  hoop,  but  the  branches  will  never  spring 
upwards,  though  it  be  gone,  wherever  you  transplant  the  tree.  Are  you 
doing  that  with  your  souls  ?  If  you  give  them  the  downward  set,  they  will 
keep  it,  though  the  earth  to  which  you  have  fastened  them  be  burnt  up 
with  fervent  heat,  and  the  soul  be  transplanted  into  another  region. 

If  you  have  life,  you  will  grow.  If  there  be  any  real  possession  of  the 
inheritance,  it  will  be  like  the  rolling  fences  that  they  used  to  have  in 
certain  parts  of  the  country,  where  a  squatter  settled  himself  down  upon  a 
bit  of  ^  royal  forest,  and  had  a  hedge  that  could  be  moved  outAvards  and 
shifted  on  by  degrees  ;  and  from  having  begun  with  a  little  bit  big  enough 
for  a  cabbage  garden,  ended  with  a  piece  big  enough  for  a  farm.  And 
that  is  what  we  are  always  to  do,  to  be  always  acquiring,  '*  adding  field  to 
field  "  in  the  great  inheritance  that  is  ours. 

34  S 


"WHAT   SHALL   I   RENDER?" 

What  shall  I  render  unto  the  Lord  for  all  His  benefits  toward  me? — 
Psalm  cxvi.  12. 

December  14  "WHAT  shall  I  render?  .  .  .  Take!"  Why!  the  whole 
essence  of  Christianity  is  in  that  antithesis,  if  you  think  about 
it.  For  what  does  the  doctrine  that  a  man  is  saved  by  faith  mean  if  it 
does  not  mean  that  the  one  thing  that  we  all  have  to  do  is  to  accept  what 
God  bestows  ?  And  the  same  attitude  of  reception  which  we  have  to 
assume  at  the  beginning  of  our  Chri.^tian  life  must  be  maintained  all 
through  it.  Depend  upon  it,  we  shall  make  far  more  progress  in  the 
Divine  life  if  we  learn  that  each  step  of  it  must  begin  with  the  acceptance 
of  a  gift  from  God,  than  if  we  toil  and  moil  and  wear  ourselves  with  vain 
efforts  in  our  own  strength.  I  do  not  mean  that  a  Christian  man  is  not 
to  put  forth  such  ehcrts,  but  I  do  mean  that  the  basis  of  all  profitable 
discipline  and  self-control  and  reaching  out  towards  higher  attainments, 
either  in  knowledge  or  in  practical  conformity  to  Jesus  Christ,  which  he 
puts  forth,  must  be  laid  in  tuller  acceptance  of  God's  gift,  on  which  must 
follow  building  on  the  foundation,  by  resolute  efforts  to  work  God's  gift 
into  our  characters,  and  to  work  it  out  in  our  lives. 

All  around  you,  Christian  friend,  there  lie  infinite  possibilities.  God 
does  not  wait  to  be  asked  to  give  ;  He  has  given  once  for  all,  and 
continuously  as  the  result  of  that  once-for-all  giving,  just  as  preservation  is 
but  the  prolongation  of  the  act  of  creation.  He  has  given  once  for  all  and 
continuously  all  that  every  man,  and  all  men,  need  for  their  being  made 
perfectly  like  Himself.  We  hear  people  praying  for  "larger  bestowments 
of  grace."  Let  them  take  the  bestowrncnls  that  they  have^  and  they  will 
find  them  enough  for  their  need.  God  commv,nicated  His  whole  fulness 
to  the  Church  for  ever  when  He  sent  His  Son,  and  when  His  Son  sent  His 
Spirit.  "  Open  thy  mouth  wide  and  I  will  fill  it."  Take  what  you  have, 
and  you  will  find  that  you  have  all  that  you  need. 

What  a  sin  it  is  that  with  such  abundance  lying  close  to  us,  we 
Christian  people  should  live  such  low  and  surface  lives  as  we  do  !  The 
whole  fulness  of  ocean  is  pouring  past  us,  and  our  lives  are  often  chapped 
with  thirst.  All  God's  grace  is  streaming  out  ever  more  around  us,  and 
we  are  impoverished  and  crippled  for  want  of  it.  A  man  plunged  into 
the  sea  of  God,  and  j^et  empty  of  God,  is  like  a  flask  corked  and  waxed 
and  waterproofed,  and  sunk  into  the  depths  of  ocean,  with  leagues  of 
water  on  either  side,  and  fathoms  below  it,  and  yet  dry  within. 

Remember  the  blessed  transformation  in  the  whole  conceptions  of  our 
relations  to  God,  our  obligations  and  duties,  which  this  thought  affects. 
Away  goes  the  religion  of  fear,  away  goes  the  religion  of  reluctant 
obedience  to  duties,  which  we  discern  but  dislike.  Away  goes  the 
religion  of  recompense  and  bartering  and  bargaining  with  God.  Away 
goes  everything  except  the  religion  of  a  heart  turned  to  love  by  the 
reception  of  God's  love.  Such  a  heart  is  endowed  with  a  kind  of 
shadowy  resemblance  to  the  Divine  blessedness.  Into  it,  too,  though 
it  has  nothing,  can  come  the  wish  to  give  itself,  to  give  God  what  He  has 
]iot  unless  we  give  it.  And  so,  with  wonderful  reciprocity,  like  the  light 
flashed  back  from  one  mirror  to  another,  God — the  &iving  God — gives  and 
loves,  and  the  recipient  man  receives  and  loves  and  gives.  "What  shall 
I  render?  ...  I  will  take." 

349- 


THE   CUP   OF  SALVATION. 

/  will  take  the  cup  of  salvation,  and  call  upon  the  Name  of  the  Lord. — 
Psalm  cxvi.  13. 

^        ,     ,,     Here  is  a  guiding  word  about  plain  common  duties. 
December  15,  ._        ^  ^     ^    *="  .  ^,  .       . 

hlovv  lew  01  us  recognise,  and  receive  into  our  hearts,  all 

the  lesser  daily  blessings  which  God  pours  down  upon  us  !  How  many  of 
us  are  like  Hainan,  to  whom  the  Persian  king's  favour,  and  the  real 
sovereignty  over  his  empire,  and  everything  that  gratified  ambition  could 
expect,  all  turned  to  ashes  in  his  mouth  because  one  poor  Jew  sat  there, 
and  would  not  get  up  when  he  passed.  "All  this  availeth  me  nothing,  as 
long  as  Mordecai  sits  at  the  gate."  Ah  !  we  all  have  our  Mordecais,  and 
we  say  to  ourselves,  "  God  has  given  me  this  mercy,  that  blessing,  and  the 
other  one  ;  but  it  all  turns  to  bitterness  because  I  cannot  get  that  other 
thing  that  I  want.  It  is  a  little  one,  but  I  want  it,  for  without  it  every- 
thing else  is  nothing."  There  are  some  of  us  who,  if  there  is  the  faintest 
suspicion  of  a  cloud  away  down  on  the  horizon  shiver  and  complain  as  if 
there  were  no  sunshine.  One  sorrow  can  blot  out  a  thousand  joys.  One 
disappointment  can  more  than  cancel  a  whole  series  of  fulfilled  expectations, 
Alas  !  that  it  should  be  so.  Brother,  be  sure  that  you  take  all  the  blessings 
of  your  daily  life  that  God  bestows  upon  you,  and  do  not  be  one  of  God's 
fractious  children,  who  care  for  none  of  His  gifts  because  they  are  whimper- 
ing for  the  moon,  and  nothing  else  will  satisfy  them.  Take  what  is  given, 
and  you  will  find  that  it  is  far  more  than  you  expected,  and  your  hands  and 
your  heart  will  be  full. 

And  then  there  is  another  plain  piece  of  practical  wisdom,  "  I  will  take 
the  cup,  .  .  .  and  call  upon  the  Name  of  the  Lord."  Do  not  take  any  cup 
in  your  hand  that  you  cannot  do  that  with.  You  remember  the  old  stories 
about  the  demon-prepared  banquets  spread  in  the  desert  to  tempt  the 
knight  from  his  quest.  When  the  Name  of  God  was  pronounced  over  them, 
they  vanished,  and  instead  of  dainties  and  gold  plate  and  a  luxurious  table, 
there  was  only  a  heap  of  dry  sticks  and  stones  on  the  sand.  Name  the 
Name  of  God  over  the  cup  before  you  put  it  to  your  lips  ;  and  if  you 
cannot,  dash  it  down.  Be  sure  that  it  is  no  cup  of  salvation  unless  you  do. 
Unless  we  do  thus  associate  thankful  thoughts  of  the  giving  God  with  all 
our  common  blessings,  they  are  no  blessings,  and  will  draw  us  away  from 
Him. 

But  do  not  forget  that  we  can  render  to  God  something  which  He  does 
not  possess  in  such  a  manner  as  satisfies  His  heart,  unless  we  give  it  Him. 
We  can  give  Him  ourselves  :  and  we  shall  be  moved  to  such  self- surrender 
only  when  we  have  taken  the  full  cup  of  full  salvation  which  Christ  has 
made  ours  by  His  giving  Himself  for,  and  to,  us  all.  "  I  beseech  you, 
brethren,  by  the  mercies  of  God,  to  present  your  bodies  a  living  sacrifice."' 

350 


TRANSFORMATION   THROUGH    PRAYER. 

As  He  was  praying,  the  fashion  of  His  countenance  was  altered,  and 
His  raiment  becatne  white  and  dazzling. — LuKE  ix.  29. 

De  b  16  ^^'^  if  we  have  communion  with  God  as  deep  and  real  as 
Jesus  Christ  had,  the  fashion  of  our  countenances  will  be 
altered  too.  I  do  not  mean,  of  course,  that  any  physical  change  will  occur, 
thougli  I  wonder  if  there  are  any  of  us  that  cannot  remember  some  one  who, 
at  some  time  or  other  of  deep  emotion,  and  of  high  communion  with  God, 
showed  a  face  shining  like  Stephen's  when  the  heavens  were  opened  _:  or 
like  Moses  when  he  came  down  from  the  mount  !  I  wonder  if  there  are  any 
of  us  that  have  not  in  our  hearts  the  remembrances  of,  perhaps,  very  homely 
features  of  some  poor  old  man  or  woman,  glorified  and  transfigured  by  the 
love  of  Christ  and  faith  in  God  !  Ah  !  that  miracle  is  being  done  all  around 
us  every  day.  And  there  are  people  of  whom  it  is  true  that  "A  beauty 
born  of"  more  than  "murmuring  sound"  has  passed  into  their  faces,  just 
as  there  are,  on  the  other  hand,  men  and  women  who  bear  written  on  their 
foreheads  that  they  belong  to  the  devil,  and  have  the  marks  of  their  evil 
passions,  their  bad  tempers,  their  lusts,  their  cunning,  stamped  on  their 
faces  so  that  nobody  can  mistake  them.  We  are  all  ph}  sicgnomists,  and 
we  generally  make  a  pretty  correct  estimate  of  a  man's  character  by  looking 
at  him. 

If  we  are  holding  on  by  God,  and  if  our  days  are  passed  in  any  real 
sense  in  communion  with  Him,  whether  upon  the  mountain-top  as  Christ 
and  the  three  were,  or  down  in  the  valley  trying  to  cure  demoniacs,  as  was 
much  more  permanently  the  disciples'  place  and  duty  ;  if  we  are,  in  any 
real  sense,  in  touch  with  God,  we  cannot  but  be  made  fair,  noble,  refined, 
manifestly  purified,  and  having  an  indwelling  and  out-saying  light  in  and 
from  us.  If  there  is  nothing  of  the  sort  in  our  appearance,  it  is  because 
there  is  very  little  of  the  sort  resident  within  us.  For  communion  with 
God  always  tells  upon  a  life,  and  lifts  a  man  above  cares,  and  enables  him 
to  put  his  heel  upon  his  faults,  and  to  master  his  devilries  ;  and  refines  him 
by  the  presence  of  elevated  and  heaven-directed  thoughts  and  aspirations. 
Does  your  religion  do  anything  of  that  sort  for  you,  brother?  If  it  does 
not,  you  had  better  see  whether  it  is  real  or  not. 

Of  all  the  things  that  are  given,  in  God's  great  mercy,  to  Christian 
people,  to  change  their  characters  and  natures  for  the  better,  the  most 
powerful  is  the  transforming  power  of  communion  with  God.  It  is  to  that, 
if  you  come  to  look  into  it,  that  the  New  Testament  entrusts  the  almost 
whole  assimilation  of  men's  characters  to  the  image  of  Christ.  Of  course, 
I  know  that  the  Divine  Spirit  comes  to  sanctify  and  to  cleanse,  but  here 
is  the  law  of  our  being  transformed  :  "  We  all,  with  unveiled  face,  reflect- 
ing, as  a  mirror  does,  the  glory  of  the  Lord,  are  changed  into  the  same 
image."  Look  at  Him  and  you  will  be  Hke  Him.  You  can  tell  by  the 
flush  that  comes  over  a  man's  face  whether  he  has  it  turned  full  to  the 
sunlight  or  not.  And  we  ought  to  be  able  to  tell  by  the  very  cut  of  a  man, 
certainly  by  the  cast  of  his  hfe  and  character,  whether  he  knows  what  it  is 
to  go  up  to  the  mountain-top,  and  within  the  cloud,  to  walk  in  the  fire,  and 
catch  its  radiance  and  its  wr.rmth. 

351 


THE  NEED   OF   A   DEFINITE   AIM    IN   LIFE.— I. 

They  went  forth   to  go  into  the  land  of  Canaan,  and  into  the  land  of 
Canaan  they  cante. — Gen.  xii.  5. 

December  17  '^^^  reference  of  these  words,  as  we  all  know,  is  to  Abraham's 
£:;reat  act  of  faith,  when  he  left  Haran  and  his  native  place 
to  begin  the  pilgrim-life  which  God  had  called  him  to  undertake.  It  is  a 
strange  description  of  a  journey  to  leave  out  the  journey  altogether,  and 
only  to  mark  two  points — the  beginning  and  the  end.  The  keynotes  of 
the  narrative  are  these  two — "  went  forth"  ;  "  came  in."  The  only  things 
worth  noticing  about  any  life  are  whither  it  was  directed  and  whether  it 
reached  its  aim.  All  the  toilsomeness  of  the  road,  the  privations,  the 
weary  marches,  the  hunger  and  thirst,  the  perils  and  foes,  are  all  dropped 
out  of  sight.  Never  mind  about  these.  They  "went  forth  to  go"  ; — and 
they  came  where  they  went  to  go.  As  one  of  our  modern  poets  has  it, 
there  are 

"Two  points  in  the  adventure  of  the  diver, 
One  when,  a  beggar,  he  p.epaies  to  plunge, 
One  when,  a  prince,  he  rises  with  his  pearl." 

*' They  went  forth  "  for  one  definite  purpose,  "to  go  into  the  land  of 
Canaan."  Now,  perhaps,  you  will  remember  that  the  New  Testament  lays 
stress  upon  what  might,  at  first  sight,  seem  a  contradiction  ;  and  says  that 
Abraham  went  out,  "  not  knowing  whither  he  went."  But  there  is  no  real 
contradiction.  Both  statements  are  true.  In  Abraham's  cr.se  there  was  a 
combination  of  knowledge  and  ignorance  similar  to  that  which  we  may  all 
have  in  our  lives  ;  for  he  certainly  knew  that  he  was  to  be  led  at  last  to  a 
land  which  he  should  afterwards  inherit,  and  he  knew,  when  he  crossed 
Euphrates  and  set  his  face  westwards,  that  Canaan  was  his  immediate 
"ol)jective  point"  (as  soldiers  say),  but  he  did  not  know,  till  after  his 
departure  from  his  first  home,  that  Canaan  was  the  promised  land.  Abraham 
went  forth,  as  it  were,  with  sealed  orders.  He  was  bid  to  go  to  a  certain 
place,  and,  when  there,  he  would  get  further  instructions.  He  knew  that 
he  was  to  go  to  Canaan,  and  beyond  that  point  all  was  dark,  except  for  the 
sparkle  of  the  great  hope  that  gleamed  on  the  horizon  in  front,  as  a  simlit 
summit  rises  above  a  sea  of  mist  between  it  and  the  traveller.  Like  such  a 
traveller,  Abraham  could  not  accurately  tell  how  far  off  the  shining  peak  was, 
nor  where,  in  the  intervening  gorges  full  of  mist,  the  path  lay  ;  but  he 
plunged  into  the  darkness  with  a  good  heart,  because  he  had  caught  a 
glimpse  of  his  journey's  end.  So  with  us.  We  may  have  clear  before  us 
the  ultimate  aim  and  goal  of  our  lives,  and  also  the  step  which  we  have  to 
take  now,  in  pressing  towards  it ;  while  between  these  two  there  stretches  a 
valley  full  of  mist,  the  breadth  of  which  may  be  measured  by  years  or  by 
hours,  for  all  that  we  know,  and  the  rough  places  and  green  pastures  of 
which  are  equally  hidden  from  us.  We  have  to  make  sure  that  the  moun- 
tain peak  which  we  think  we  see,  with  the  sunlight  playing  on  its  sides,  is 
not  delusive  cloud,  but  solid  reality,  and  we  have  to  be  very  certain  that 
God  has  bid  us  step  out  on  the  yard  of  ground  in  front  of  us  which  wc  can 
see  ;  and,  having  secured  these  certainties,  we  have  to  cast  ourselves  into 
the  obscurity  before  us,  and  to  carry  in  our  hearts  the  bright  vision  of  the 
end,  to  encourage  us  in  the  difliculties  of  the  rond, 

352 


THE   NEED   OF   A  DEFINITE  AIM   IN   LIFE.— II 

/  hive  choson  the  way  of  faithfulness  :   Thy  judgments  have  I  set  before 
me. — Psalm  cxix.  30. 

December  18.  ^ANY  will  re'.iiember  how  strongly  one  of  the  great  teachers 
of  the  past  generation  laid  hold  of  one  of  these  two  thoughts 
(referred  to  in  the  previous  day's  note) — and,  alas  !  only  of  one  of  them — 
when  he  insisted,  with  reiteration  that  would  have  been  wearisome  if  it  had 
not  been  so  earnest,  on  doing  the  duty  that  lies  nearest  us.  Alas  !  that  he 
did  not,  with  equal  decisiveness,  insist  on  the  reality  of  the  Christian  vision 
of  the  ultimate  goal,  which  glorifies  the  smallest  proximate  duties  !  But  we 
should  combine  both  in  our  view,  that  the  sight  of  the  land  that  is  ver}'  far 
off  may  both  hearten  us  for,  and  direct  us  to,  the  next  step  in  our  march. 
Abraham  "went  out,  not  knowing  whither  he  went";  but  yet  he  knew 
whither,  in  the  first  instance,  to  shape  his  course,  for  he  *'  went  forth  to  go 
into  the  land  of  Canaan." 

One  condition  of  a  blessed  life — certainly  a  condition  of  a  strenuous, 
fruitful,  and  noble  one — is  to  make  very  clear  to  ourselves,  and  even  to 
reiterate  to  ourselves,  what  is  the  ultimate  aim  to  which  we  are  shaping  our 
conscious  efforts.  I  beheve  that  nine-tenths  of  all  the  failures  in  this  world 
come  from  men  not  interrogating  themselves  and  answering  honestly  and 
thoroughly  this  question,  "What  am  I  living  for?"  Of  course,  all  the 
nearer  aims  which  our  physical  necessities,  our  tastes,  and  our  appetites, 
prescribe  to  us  are  clear  enough  to  everybody  ;  but  back  of  them — suppose 
I  have  made  my  fortune,  won  my  wife,  filled  my  home  with  blessings, 
made  my  position  as  a  student,  an  artist,  a  man  of  "commerce"  ;  behind 
all  these  lies — What  then  ?  What  then  ?  These  are  not  ends  ;  they  are 
means.  What  is  the  e7id  that  I  am  living  for — back  of  all  these  and  above 
them  all?  Oh  !  brother,  if  the  average,  unreflecting  man,  who  lives  from 
hand  to  mouth,  recognising  only  the  aims  for  life  which  the  necessities  of 
living  impose  upon  him,  would  but  wake  up  to  ask  himself,  for  one  reflective 
half-hour,  "What  is  it  all  about?  what  does  it  all  lead  to?  what  am  I 
going  to  do  after  I  have  attained  these  nearer  aims?"  there  would  not 
be  so  many  wasted  lives  ;  there  would  not  be  so  many  bitter  old  men 
who  look  back  upon  a  life  in  which  failure  has  been  at  least  as  con- 
spicuous as  success.  Let  us  be  sure  that  we  know  where  we  are  going, 
and  let  our  aim  be  the  highest,  noblest,  ultimate  aim,  befitting  creatures 
with  hearts,  minds,  consciences,  and  wills  like  ours.  What  that  aim  should 
be  is  not  doubtful.  The  only  worthy  aim  is  God.  Canaan  is  usually 
regarded  as  an  emblem  of  heaven,  and  that  is  correct.  But  the  land  of  our 
inheritance  is  not  wholly  across  the  river,  for  "  the  Lord  is  the  portion  of 
mine  inheritance."  God  is  Heaven.  To  dwell  with  Him  and  in  Him,  to 
have  all  ihe  current  of  our  being  setting  towards  Him,  to  remember  Him 
in  the  struggle  and  strenuous  effort  of  life,  and  to  look  to  Him  in  hours 
of  solitude  and  sadness,  are  the  conditions  of  all  blessedness,  and  of  all 
strength  and  peace. 

353  A  A 


DETACHMENT  FROM   OLD  ASSOCIATIONS. 

By  faith  Abraham^  when  he  was  called^  obeyed  to  go  out  unto  a  place 
tiihic  I  he  ivas  to  receive  for  an  inheritance ;  attd  he  went  out,  not  knowing- 
whither  he  went. — Heb.  xi.  8. 

V  19  Every  great  purpose  requires  restriction  in  other  directions. 
A  man  cannot  learn  to  play  the  fiddle  unless  he  will  consent 
to  shear  off  a  good  many  hours  of  leisure,  and  give  them  to  it.  There  is 
nothing  worth  doing  to  be  done  except  upon  condition  of  resolutely  stopping 
eyes  and  ears  to  attractions  that  lie  round  us.  Jesus  Christ  demands  no 
more  than  the  artist  pays  for  success  in  his  art,  no  more  than  the  man 
of  business  pays  for  making  his  wealth,  no  more  than  the  student  pays 
for  attaining  the  mastery  of  his  science  ;  and  that  is,  that  everything  else 
shall  be  subordinated,  and,  if  necessary,  shall  be  thrown  aside,  in  order 
to  secure  the  one  aim.  And  when  He  said,  "  No  man  can  follow  Me  that 
does  not  take  up  his  cross  and  deny  himself,"  He  was  just  putting  into 
language  the  experience  that  Abraham  and  his  company  had  to  go  through 
when,  if  ever  they  were  to  go  into  the  land  of  Canaan,  they  had  to  go  out 
of  the  land  of  Haran.  Always  subordinated,  and  often  cast  aside,  must 
everything  else  be  if  Christian  men  are  to  make  God  what  He  ought  to  be 
— their  aim  and  end.  The  compass  in  an  iron  ship  gets  deflected  by  the 
iron  round  it,  and  so  the  resolute  pointing  of  our  spirits  towards  God  gets 
drawn  aside  and  warped  by  the  many  things  that  lie  round  us.  Therefore 
rigid  self-control  and  the  continual  effort  to  regard  all  external  things  mainly 
as  means  to  an  end,  and  possibly  as  hindrances  thereto,  are  absolutely 
essential  for  success  in  the  Christian  life. 

There  is  no  patent  way  of  getting  to  God.  There  is  no  easier  path 
to  be  trodden  to-day  than  of  old.  There  are  no  rails  laid  to  travel  without 
effort  to  heaven  by.  We  have  still  to  journey  in  the  old  pilgrim  fashion 
which  Abraham  set,  and  thereby  became  "the  father  of  the  faithful."  "They 
went  forth  "—  and  unless  we  are  prepared  to  leave  behind  us  native  country 
and  companionship,  such'  as  Abraham  left  behind  him  in  Haran,  and  to 
dwell,  if  needful,  in  a  wilderness  and  a  solitude,  we  shall  never  see  "  the 
land  that  is  very  far  off."  It  is  near  us  if  we  will  forsake  self  and  the 
things  seen  and  temporal,  but  it  moves  away  and  recedes  from  us  W'hen 
we  turn  our  hearts  to  these. 

A  mournfully  large  number  of  professing  Christians  have  lost  the  very 
notion  of  progress,  and  content  themselves  with  saying,  "Oh!  we  shall 
always  be  imperfect ;  as  long  as  we  are  here  in  this  world,  we  cannot  make 
it  any  different."  No  !  you  cannot  make  it  different  in  that  respect ;  but 
if  you  are  not  growing  at  all,  ask  yourself  if  you  are  living  at  all.  Do  not 
be  content,  as  so  many  are,  to  be  like  invaders,  who  have  pitched  their 
tents,  and  after  years  of  occupation  have  been  unable  to  advance  beyond 
the  strip  of  shore  which  they  seized  at  first,  while  all  the  interior  lies 
unconquered  and  in  arms  against  them. 

354 


THE   CHRISTIAN  AIM   ULTIMATELY   REALISED. 

He  led  them  also  by  a  straight  way,  that  they  unght  go  to  a  city  of 
habitation. — Psalm  cvii.  7. 

_  .  __  The  man  that  has  one  definite  purpose  in  view  is  the  strong 
man.  Such  distinction  of  aim  gives  what  most  of  our  lives 
30  sadly  lack — continuity  right  through  them.  There  is  only  one  aim  so 
great  and  so  far  that  we  never  can  reach  it,  and  never  outgrow  it.  And 
IS  not  that  a  blessing  ?  Look  back  on  your  lives.  Have  they  not  been 
like  the  course  of  a  ship  with  a  head-wind,  tacking  first  in  one  direction 
and  then  in  another?  Have  they  not  been  like  the  navigation  of  the 
ancients,  who  could  not  push  out  to  sea  for  fear  of  losing  their  landmarks  ; 
and  so  had  fiist  to  make  for  one  headland  and  then  for  another,  and  to 
leave  them  one  by  one  behind  them  as  they  sailed  on  their  devious  course  ? 
We  too  often  live  fragmentary  lives.  But  if  we  have  far  before  us,  beyond 
the  furthest  reach  of  thought,  apprehension,  or  attainment,  the  one  great 
aim  to  be  with  God,  to  be  in  God,  to  be  like  God,  to  be  flooded  with  God, 
why,  then,  we  can  never  need  to  substitute  another  purpose  for  that,  or 
say,  "It  has  served  its  turn,  and  we  can  leave  it  behind."  So  the  whole 
life  may  be  of  a  piece,  strong,  solid,  continuously  progressive  and  increasing ; 
and  everything  that  we  do  may  be  brought  into  harmony  with  and 
subjection  to  this  aim.  There  is  only  one  purpose  tliat  lasts  a  lifetime, 
there  is  only  one  that  can  be  followed,  amidst  all  the  variety  of  occupations 
which  so  often  break  up  our  lives  into  fragments.  "  This  one  thing  I  do," 
is  the  secret  of  all  blessedness. 

No  man  honestly  wants  God  and  does  not  get  Him.  No  man  has  less 
of  goodness  and  Christlikeness  than  he  truly  desires  and  earnestly  seeks. 
We  all  experience  many  failures  in  regard  to  the  nearer  aims  of  our  lives. 
Thank  God  for  failures,  for  disappointments,  for  hopes  unfulfilled,  and 
even  for  those  which,  when  accomplished,  turn  out  not  to  be  worth  fulfilling. 
Thank  God  for  all  the  times  in  which  He  has  made  the  harvest  from  our 
servings  a  very  poor  one,  so  that  we  have  sown  much  and  brought  home 
little  !  It  is  His  way  of  te^hing  us  to  turn  away  from  the  paths  in  which 
effort  has  no  assurance  of  success,  into  the  paths  in  which  it  cannot  fail. 
**  I  have  never  said  to  any  of  the  seed  of  Israel,  Seek  ye  My  face  in  vain." 
We  may  not  reach  other  lands  which  to  us  seem  to  be  lands  of  promise  ;  or 
when  we  get  there  we  may  find  that  the  land  is  "  evil  and  naughty."  But 
this  land  we  shall  reach  if  we  desire  it,  and  if,  desiring  it,  we  go  forth  from 
the  vain  world.  Canaan  is  the  symbol  of  the  rest  that  remains  for  the 
people  of  God.  No  pilgrim  with  his  face  set  Zionward  ever  perished  in 
the  wilderness  or  lost  his  road.  "They  go  from  strength  to  strength; 
every  one  of  them  in  Zion  appeareth  before  God."  And  when  they 
get  there,  nothing  will  be  thought  by  them  about  the  sandy  deserts,  the 
salt  wastes,  and  the  waterless  wildernesses  ;  nothing  about  the  weariness 
and  the  solitude  and  the  dangers  and  the  toils.  This,  and  this  alone,  will 
be  worth  recording  as  the  summing  up  of  the  lives  of  the  happy  pilgrims 
who  have  accomplished  all  at  which  they  aimed,  that  they  are  at  rest  for 
ever  in  the  mother-country  which  they  sought. 

355 


A  HOPE  BORN  IN  THE  DARKNESS. 

That  through  patience  and  through  comfort  of  the  Scriptures,  we  tntgh 
have  hope. —  Roji.  xv.  4, 

December  21.  WHO  can  tell  how  many  struggling  souls  have  taken  heart 
again,  as  they  pondered  over  the  sweet  stories  of  sorrow 
subdued  which  stud  the  pages  of  Scripture  like  stars  in  its  firmament? 
The  tears  shed  long  ago  which  God  has  put  "in  His  bottle,"  and  recorded 
in  "  His  book,"  have  truly  been  turned  into  pearls.  That  long  gallery  of 
portraits  of  sufferers,  who  have  all  trodden  the  same  rough  road,  and  been 
sustained  by  the  same  hand,  and  reached  the  same  home,  speaks  cheer  to 
all  who  follow  them.  Hearts  wrung  by  cruel  partings  from  those  dearer 
to  them  than  their  own  souls  turn  to  the  pages  which  tell  how  Abraham, 
with  calm  sorrow,  laid  his  Sarah  in  the  cave  of  Machpelah  ;  or  how,  when 
Jacob's  eyes  were  dim  that  he  could  not  see,  his  memory  still  turned  to  the 
hour  of  agony  when  Rachel  died  by  him,  and  he  sees  clear  in  its  light  her 
lonely  grave,  where  so  much  of  himself  was  laid ;  or  to  the  more  sacred  pages 
which  record  the  struggle  of  grief  and  faith  in  the  hearts  of  the  sisters  of 
Bethany.  All  who  are  anyways  afflicted  in  mind,  body,  or  estate  find  in 
the  Psalms  men  speaking  their  deepest  experiences  before  them  ;  and  the 
grand  majesty  of  sorrow  that  marks  "  the  patience  of  Job,"  and  the  flood 
of  sunshine  that  bathes  him,  revealing  the  "  rod  of  the  Lord,"  have 
strengthened  countless  sufferers  to  bear  and  to  hold  fast  and  to  hope.  We 
are  all  enough  of  children  to  be  more  aftected  by  living  examples  than  by 
dissertatioiis,  however  true  ;  and  so  Scripture  is  mainly  history,  revealing 
God  by  the  record  of  His  acts,  and  disclosing  the  secret  of  human  life  by 
telling  us  the  experiences  of  living  men.  But  Scripture  has  another  method 
of  ministering  encouragement  to  our  often  fainting  and  faithless  hearts.  It 
cuts  down  through  all  the  complications  of  human  affairs,  and  lays  bare  the 
innermost  motive  power.  It  not  only  shows  us  in  its  narratives  the  working 
of  sorrow  and  the  power  of  faith,  but  it  distinctly  lays  down  the  source  and 
the  purpose,  the  whence  and  the  whither,  of  all  suffering.  No  man  need 
quail  or  faint  before  the  most  torturing  pains,  or  most  disastrous  strokes  of 
evil,  who  holds  firmly  the  plain  teaching  of  Scripture  on  these  two  points : 
they  all  come  frofn  my  Father,  and  they  all  come  for  my  good.  It  is  a 
short  and  simple  creed,  easily  apprehended.  It  pretends  to  no  recondite 
wisdom.  It  is  homely  philosophy,  which  common  intellects  can  grasp, 
which  children  can  understand,  and  hearts  half-paralysed  by  sorrow  can 
take  in.  So  much  the  better.  Grief  and  pain  are  so  common  that  their 
cure  had  need  to  be  easily  obtained.  Ignorant  and  stupid  people  have  to 
writhe  in  agony  as  well  as  wise  and  clever  ones  ;  and  till  grief  is  the  portion 
only  of  the  cultivated  classes,  its  healing  must  come  from  something  more 
universal  than  philosophy,  or  else  the  nettle  would  be  more  plentiful  than 
the  dock,  and  many  a  poor  heart  would  be  stung  to  death.  Blessed  be  God ! 
the  Christian  view  of  sorrow,  while  it  leaves  much  unexplained,  focuses  a 
steady  light  on  these  two  points  :  its  origin  and  its  end.  The  slings  and 
arrows  which  strike  are  no  more  flung  blindly  by  an  "outrageous  fortune," 
but  each  bears  an  inscription,  like  the  fabled  bolts,  which  tells  what  hand 
drew  the  bow,  and  they  come  with  His  love. 

356 


A  HOPE  BORN  OF  THE  DAY. 

God  was  pleased  to  make  known  what  is  the  riches  of  the  glory  of  this 
mystery  among  the  Gentiles,  which  is  Christ  in  you,  the  hope  of  glory. — 
Col.  i.  27. 

Se  b  22  There  is  a  river  in  Switzerland  fed  by  two  uniting  streams 
bearing  the  same  name,  one  of  them  called  the  "  white,"  one 
of  them  the  "grey,"  or  dark.  One  comes  down  from  the  glaciers,  and 
bears  the  half-melted  snow  in  its  white  ripple  ;  the  other  flows  through  a 
lovely  valley,  and  is  discoloured  by  its  eartli.  They  unite  in  one  common 
current.  So  in  the  two  verses  (Rom.  xv.  4,  13)  we  have  two  streams,  a 
white  and  a  black,  and  they  both  blend  together  and  flow  out  into  a 
common  hope.  In  the  former  of  them  we  have  the  dark  stream — "through 
patience  and  comfort,"  which  implies  afiliction  and  effort.  The  issue  and 
outcome  of  all  difficulty,  trial,  sorrow,  ought  to  be  hope.  And  in  the  other 
verse  we  have  the  other  valley,  down  which  the  light  stream  comes — "  the 
God  of  hope  fill  you  with  all  joy  and  peace  in  believing,  that  ye  m_ay  abound 
in  hope."  So  both  halves  of  the  possible  human  experience  are  meant  to 
end  in  the  same  blessed  result ;  and  whether  you  go  round  on  the  one  side 
of  the  sphere  of  human  life,  or  whether  you  take  the  other  hemisphere,  you 
come  to  the  same  point,  if  you  have  travelled  with  God's  hand  in  yours,  and 
with  Him  for  your  Guide. 

I  have  traced  the  genealogy  of  the  hope  which  is  the  child  of  the  night. 
But  we  have  also  a  hope  that  is  born  of  the  day,  the  child  of  sunshine  and 
gladness,  and  that  is  set  before  us  in  the  second  of  the  two  verses  I  have 
quoted.  The  darkness  and  the  light  are  both  alike  to  our  hope,  in  so 
far  as  each  may  become  the  occasion  for  its  exercise.  It  is  not  only  to 
be  the  sweet  juice  pressed  from  our  hearts  by  the  winepress  of  calamities, 
but  that  which  flows  of  itself  from  hearts  ripened  and  mellowed  under  the 
sunshine  of  God-given  blessedness. 

We  have  seen  that  the  bridge  by  which  sorrow  led  to  hope  was  perse- 
verance and  courage  ;  in  this  second  analysis  of  the  origin  of  hope,  joy 
and  peace  are  the  bridge  by  which  faith  passes  over  into  it.  Observe  the 
difference  :  There  is  no  direct  connection  between  affliction  and  hope,  but 
there  is  between  joy  and  hope.  We  have  no  right  to  say,  *'  Because  I  suffer 
I  shall  possess  good  in  the  future  "  ;  but  we  have  a  right  to  say,  "  Because 
I  rejoice — of  course  with  a  joy  in  God — I  shall  never  cease  to  rejoice  in 
Him."  Such  joy  is  the  prophet  of  its  own  immortality  and  completion. 
And,  on  the  other  hand,  the  joy  and  peace  which  are  naturally  the  direct 
progenitors  of  Christian  hope  are  the  children  of  faith.  So  that  we  have 
here  two  generations,  as  it  were,  of  hope's  ancestors.  Faith  produces  joy 
and  peace,  and  these  again  produce  hope. 

Faith  leads  to  joy  and  peace.  Paul  has  found — and  if  we  only  put  it  to 
the  proof,  we  shall  also  find — that  the  simple  exercise  of  simple  faith  fills  the 
soul  with  "a// joy  and  peace."  Gladness  in  all  its  variety,  and  in  full 
measure,  calm  repose  in  every  kind,  and  abundant  in  its  still  depth,  will 
pour  into  my  heart  as  water  does  into  a  vessel  on  condition  of  my  taking  away 
the  barrier  and  opening  my  heart  through  faith.  Trust,  and  thou  rhalt  be 
calm.  In  the  measure  of  thy  trust  shall  be  the  measure  of  thy  joy  and 
peace. 

357 


THE  BELOVED  SON. 

This  is  My  beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased. — Matt,  iii.  17. 

All  Christ's  work  for  us,  and  its  sweetness  and  precious- 
ness  to  us,  all  His  power  as  the  Revealer  of  God  and  of  man, 
all  His  power  as  Redeemer,  Saviour,  Sympathiser,  Helper,  Friend,  Judge, 
Recompense,  Life,  all  depends  on  and  stands  or  falls  with  this  conception 
of  His  birth  into  the  world  as  the  coming,  by  His  voluntary  act,  of  the 
Eternal  Word  into  the  brotherhood  of  our  humanity.  *'  Forasmuch  as  the 
children  were  partakers  of  flesh  and  blood,  He  also  Himself  likewise,"  and 
yet  how  differently,  actively,  "  took  part  of  the  same." 

And  then  from  this  flows  the  other  great  thought  which  our  Lord 
announces,  that  His  birth  is  the  assumption  of  a  true  and  yet  a  unique 
manhood.  He  is  "Son  of  man,"  body,  soul,  and  spirit,  one  of  us  ;  "bone 
of  our  bone,  flesh  of  our  flesh,"  knowing  the  aspirations  of  the  spirit  and 
the  limitations  of  the  body ;  proved  to  be  the  Son  of  David,  and  the 
Brother  of  us  all  according  to  the  flesh,  in  that  He  hungered  and  thirsted, 
and  wearied  and  wept,  and  suffered  and  died ;  proved  to  be  a  man  in 
spirit  and  in  heart  like  us  all,  in  that  He  sorrowed  and  rejoiced,  was 
grieved  and  was  angry,  willed  and  purposed,  thought  and  loved. 

And  not  only  is  a  perfect  and  a  true  manhood  revealed  to  us  in  the 
name  by  which  He  comes  so  near  to  us  all,  but  a  manhood  which,  in  all  its 
reality,  was  yet  singular  and  unique.  Others  are  "sons  of  men"  ;  this  is 
^^  the  Son."  In  Him,  as  it  were,  is  contained  all  which  is  proper  to 
humanity,  and  is  scattered  elsewhere  through  the  race.  He  is  the  one 
pearl  of  great  price,  the  entire  and  perfect  chrysolite.  To  Him  all  other 
men  are  but  as  fragments.  He  alone  is  the  full  true  Man,  according  to  the 
Divine  ideal ;  the  secofid  Man,  the  Man  Christ  Jesus.  In  Him  all  the 
strengths,  beauties,  holinesses,  proper  to,  or  possible  to,  humanity  are 
gathered,  and  abide.  Others,  saints,  sages,  preachers,  teachers,  by  the 
side  of  Him  are  like  a  tiny  cup  of  water  by  the  side  of  the  ever-flowing 
fountain.  You  might  take  millions  of  l)locks  to  be  fashioned  into  the  fairest 
forms  of  manly  strength  and  womanly  beauty,  out  of  this  great  marble  cliff, 
in  v.'hich  everything  that  is  lovely  and  of  good  report,  all  that  is  virtuous 
and  deserves  praise,  is  found  in  stainless  perfection. 

In  every  religion  is  some  tradition  that  "The  gods  are  come  down  in 
the  likeness  of  men."  Is  this  but  one  more  dream  like  those  others, 
expressing  unfulfilled  longings  and  vain  desires?  Nay,  this  is  the  reality, 
of  which  those  are  but  confessions  of  the  need.  They  are  man's  wistful  and 
half-despairing  hopes.  This  is  God's  answer,  meeting  and  surpassing  all 
their  expectations,  giving  a  real,  perfect,  and  eternal  incarnation,  instead  of 
apparent  partial  and  temporary  assumptions  of  shadowy  manhood. 

358 


THE  INCARNATION   IN   ORDER  TO  A  LIFE    OF  SERVICE. 

The  Son  of  man  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister,  and 
to  give  His  life  a  ransom  for  many. — Matt.  xx.  28. 

December  2ft.  ^^  ^  .^^^^  might  enter  poor  men's  huts,  and  learn  their 
condition,  and  live  their  hves,  and  share  their  squalor,  and 
weep  their  tears,  and  staunch  their  wounds,  so  Christ  wills  to  be  born  that 
He  may  help  and  serve  us.  He  comes  "not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to 
minister."  The  infinite  condescension  of  the  incarnation,  looked  at  as  I 
have  suggested  it  must  be  looked  at,  is  the  fit  vestibule  to  a  life  hkewise 
marked  by  infinite  condescension  and  lowliness.  He  comes  to  serve. 
Think  of  the  outward  circumstances  of  the  life  ;  of  how  He  stole  into  the 
world,  as  it  were,  in  lowly  guise,  and  choosing  the  condition  of  poverty. 
Think  of  how,  all  through  His  Ufe,  you  find  unwearied  diligence,  readiness 
to  help  everybody,  whatsoever  their  weakness,  their  need,  to  turn  away 
from  no  vileness,  to  be  disgusted  by  no  profanity,  to  despair  of  no  abject  or 
alienated  heart.  He  ever  recognises  the  claims  of  others  upon  Him,  and 
never  thinks  of  His  claims  upon  them  except  for  their  good.  He  requires 
nothing,  never  for  a  moment  shows  that  He  thought  of  Himself,  but  for 
ever  devotes  His  loving  heart  and  hand,  His  wise  words.  His  miracle- 
working  power,  to  the  blessing  of  men. 

Such  a  Hfe  stands  absolutely  alone.  There  is  not  a  flaw  in  this  marble, 
not  a  black  vein  running  through  it  that  spoils  the  statue,  not  a  speck.  No 
man  can  put  his  finger  upon  any  action  recorded  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  say, 
He  did  that  for  His  own  advantage.  He  did  that  from  a  motive  that 
centred  upon  self. 

Do  not  let  us  forget  that  in  this  we  have  Christ's  revelation  of  God. 
The  Highest  of  all  is  highest,  in  order  that  lie  may  stoop  to  the  low.liest, 
and  being  Lord  of  all  serve  the  needs  and  supply  the  emptiness  of  every 
creature  that  lives. 

That  revelation  of  the  Master's  relation  to  us  is  not  antiquated  by  His 
present  exaltation.  He  is  still  your  Servant  and  mine,  ready  to  help  and 
to  succour.  And,  more  wonderful  than  all.  He  has  given  it  us,  as  the 
highest  conception  that  we  can  form  of  the  heavenly  world,  that  He 
Himself  will  come  forth  and  gird  Himself,  and  serve  them  who  have  been 
His  servants  here. 

That  Hfe  of  service  was  also  a  true  revelation  of  the  law  of  His  kingdom 
and  of  the  true  greatness  and  blessedness  of  men.  He  proposes  His  own 
utter  self-suppression  and  devotion  to  our  advantage,  as  the  pattern  to  which 
all  professing  Christians  are  to  conform.  In  Him  we  learn  the  dignity  of 
service  ;  in  Him  we  learn  the  obligations  of  superiors.  This  example  is 
meant  to  shame  us  out  of  our  self-seeking,  vulgar  ambition,  and  misuse  of 
advantages  which  raise  us  above  our  fellows.  It  says  to  us  all,  "Do  not 
stand  on  your  rights  ;  forget  your  claims  ;  consecrate  your  capacities  to 
your  brethren's  service,  and  learn  that  position  means  obligition,  and  that 
the  only  true  order  of  rank  in  Christ's  kingdom  is  determined,  not  by  what 
we  are,  but  by  our  use  of  what  we  are  to  help  all  who  will  accept  our  help." 
Does  the  world  believe  that  the  servant  of  all  is  the  chiefest  of  all  ?  Does 
it  believe  that  the  chiefest  of  all  should  be  servant  of  all  ?  Does  the  Church 
believe  it?  Do  we?  Do  we  act  as  if  we  did,  either  in  regard  to  our 
judgment  of  others  or  to  the  regulation  of  our  own  lives  ? 

359 


^ 


CHRIST'S   INCARNATION   IN   ORDER  TO  HIS  VICARIOUS 
AND   REDEEMING  DEATH. 

/  lay  down  My  life  for  the  sheep.  .  .  .  /  have  power  to  lay  it  down,  and 
J  have  power  to  take  it  again. — ^JOHN  x.  15,  18. 

Decemter  25.  ^^^  ^^^  imitate  Christ  in  His  service,  but  not  in  His  sacrifice  ; 
we  can  tread  in  His  footsteps  to  the  gate  of  Gethsemane,  but 
He  has  to  wrestle  in  His  agony  alone  ;  alone  has  to  stand  before  His  judges, 
and  to  die  alone.  He  gives  His  life.  As  at  its  beginning  He  willed  to  be 
born,  so  at  the  end  He  wills  to  die.  He  is  the  Lord  of  Life  and  the  Lord 
of  Death;  and  never  did  He  witness  the  completeness  of  His  authority 
over  that  awful  form,  which  yet  is  His  servant,  more  marvellously  and  entirely 
than  when  He  seemed  to  submit  to  its  blow. 

Like  the  King  of  Israel  who  bade  his  armour-bearer  fall  upon  him  and 
slay  him,  so  Christ  commanded  and  Death  obeyed.  If  you  will  read  with 
an  eye  to  this  thought  the  stories  of  the  Crucifixion,  you  will  see  that  all  the 
evangelists,  as  of  set  purpose,  choose  expressions  which  are  at  least  con- 
sistent with,  and  I  think  were  selected  on  purpose  to  express,  the  thought 
of  the  voluntariness  of  our  Lord's  death.  "  He  yielded  up  the  ghost," 
*'  He  gave  up  the  spirit,"  with  a  mighty  cry  which  indicated  unexhausted 
strength,  "  Father  !  into  Thy  hands  I  commend  My  Spirit  !" 

The  same  witness  is  borne,  as  I  believe,  by  the  remarkable  language 
employed  in  the  account  of  the  Transfiguration,  when  these  three,  each  of 
whom  stood  in  a  peculiar  relation  to  death,  Moses,  Elias,  and  Christ,  con- 
versed in  solemn  words,  "concerning  the  departtcre  wj\nch  He  should 
accomplish  at  Jerusalem  " — by  Himself  willing  to  go,  and  therefore  going. 
You  will  not  understand  either  birth  or  death  unless  you  interpret  them 
both  according  to  His  own  profound  saying:  "I  came  forth  from  the 
Father,  and  am  come  into  the  world."  Again,  '*  I  leave  the  world  and  go 
unto  the  Father." 

And,  still  further,  we  have  here  set  forth  our  Lord's  voluntary  death  as 
a  ransom.  A  ransom  is  a  price  paid  for  the  deliverance  of  a  slave  from 
captivity.  And  Christ  distinctly,  beyond  all  cavil  on  the  part  of  honest 
interpretation,  as  it  seems  to  me,  sets  forth  His  death  here  as  the  crown  of 
His  service  and  the  climax  of  His  work,  because  in  it  there  is  the  power  by 
which  the  bonds  of  sin  and  condemnation  are  broken,  and  liberty  is  pro- 
claimed to  the  captive,  and  the  opening  of  the  prison  to  them  that  are 
bound.  He  dies,  not  as  the  hero  dies  who  closes  his  heroism  by  a  brave 
death.  He  dies,  not  as  the  martyr  dies  who  seals  his  witness  with  his  blood. 
He  dies,  not  as  the  saint  dies,  leaving  behind  him  sweet  and  pathetic 
memories  that  draw  us  onward  upon  a  course  like  his  own.  Other  men's 
deaths  are  but  the  closing  of  their  activity  ;  Christ's  death  is  the  climax  of 
His.  It  is  not  enough  that  He  should  serve  in  our  stead  ;  He  must  die 
our  death  if  we  are  to  be  set  free.  Il  is  not  enough  that  He  should  witness 
of  God  by  the  wisdom  of  His  Word,  the  purity  of  His  life,  the  graciousness 
of  His  deeds,  the  tenderness  of  His  compassion,  the  pathos  of  His  tears. 
A  nobler  revelation  of  the  love  of  God  triumphing  over  man's  sin  ;  of  the 
consistency  of  that  life  with  perfect  righteousness — a  revelation,  too,  of 
the  darkness  and  the  foulness  of  man's  evil  which  nothing  else  could  have 
given,  is  given  to  us  when,  and  only  when,  we  recognise  the  voluntary  death 
of  Jesus  Christ  as  the  ransom  and  propitiation  for  the  sins  of  the  world. 

:56o 


WATCHFULNESS. 

Blessed  are  those  servants  whom  the  lord  when  he  covneth  shall  find 
watching.  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  that  he  shall  gird  himself,  and  make  them 
to  sit  down  to  meat,  and  will  come  forth  and  serve  them.. — LuKE  xii.  37. 

December  26.  "^^^  ^^^^  ^^^^  ^^  watchfulness  is  keeping  awake,  and  the 
second  is  looking  out  for  something  that  is  coming.  Both 
these  conceptions  are  intertwined  in  both  our  Lord's  use  of  the  metaphor  of 
the  watching  servant  and  in  the  echoes  of  it  which  we  find  abundantly 
in  the  Apostolic  letters.  The  first  thing  is  to  keep  ourselves  awake  all 
through  the  soporific  night,  when  everything  tempts  to  slumber.  Even  the 
wise  virgins,  with  trimmed  lamps  and  girt  loins,  do  in  some  degree  succumb 
to  the  drowsy  influences  around  them,  and,  like  the  foolish  ones,  slumber, 
though  the  slumbers  of  the  two  classes  be  unlike.  Christian  people  live  in 
the  midst  of  an  order  of  things  which  tempts  them  to  close  the  eyes  of  their 
hearts  and  minds  to  all  the  real  and  unseen  glories  above  and  around  them 
and  that  might  be  within  them,  and  to  live  for  the  comparatively  con- 
temptible and  trivial  things  of  this  present.  Just  as  when  a  man  sleeps  he 
loses  his  consciousness  of  the  sohd  external  realities,  and  passes  into  a 
fantastic  world  of  his  own  imaginations,  which  have  no  correspondence  in 
external  facts,  and  will  vanish  like  the  baseless  fabric  of  a  vision  if  but  a 
poor  cock  shall  crow,  so  the  men  who  are  conscious  only  of  this  present 
life  and  of  the  things  that  are  seen,  though  they  pride  themselves  on  being 
wide  awake,  are,  in  the  deepest  of  their  being,  fixst  asleep,  and  are  dealing 
with  illusions  which  shall  pass  and  leave  nought  behind,  as  really  as  are 
men  who  lie  upon  dreaming  couches  and  fancy  themselves  hard  at  work. 
Keep  awake  ;  that  is  the  first  thing,  which,  being  translated  into  plain 
English,  points  just  to  this,  that,  unless  we  make  a  dead  lift  of  continuous 
efiort  to  keep  firm  grasp  of  God  and  Christ,  and  of  all  the  unseen  magnifi- 
cences that  are  included  in  these  two  words,  as  surely  as  we  live  we  shall 
lose  our  hold  upon  them,  and  fall  into  the  drugged  and  diseased  sleep  in 
which  so  many  men  around  us  are  plunged.  It  sometimes  seems  to  one  as 
if  the  sky  above  us  were  raining  down  narcotics  upon  us,  so  profoundly  are  the 
bulk  of  men  unconscious  of  realities  and  befooled  by  the  illusions  of  a  dream. 

Many  of  us  have  to  acknowledge  that  the  fervour  of  early  days  has  died 
down  into  coldness.  The  river  that  leapt  from  its  source  rejoicing,  and 
bickered  amongst  the  hills  in  such  swift  and  musical  descent,  creeps  sluggish 
and  almost  stagnant  amongst  the  flats  of  later  life,  or  has  been  lost  and 
swallowed  up  altogether  in  the  thirsty  and  encroaching  sands  of  a  barren 
worldliness.  Do  not  let  your  Christian  life  be  like  that  snow  that  is  on 
the  ground — when  it  first  lights  upon  the  earth,  radiant  and  white,  but  day 
by  day  more  covered  with  a  veil  of  sooty  blackness  until  it  becomes  dark 
and  foul.  Even  early  failures,  recognised  and  repented  of,  may  make  a 
man  better  fitted  for  the  tasks  which  once  he  fled  from.  Just  as  they  tell 
us  that  a  broken  bone  renewed  is  stronger  at  the  point  of  fracture  than  it 
ever  was  before,  so  the  very  sin  that  we  commit,  when  once  we  know  it 
for  a  sin,  and  have  brought  it  to  Christ  for  forgiveness,  may  minister  to  our 
future  efficiency  and  strength. 

The  past  is  no  specimen  of  what  the  future  may  be.  The  page  that  is 
yet  to  be  written  need  have  none  of  the  blots  of  the  page  that  we  have 
turned  over  shining  through  it.  The  sin  which  we  have  learned  to  know 
for  a  sin  and  to  hate  teaches  us  humility,  dependence — shows  us  where  the 
weak  places  are ;  sin  which  is  forgiven  knits  us  to  Christ  with  deeper  and 
more  fervid  love,  and  results  in  a  larger  consecration. 

361 


REMEMBER  AND  BE  THANKFUL. 

And  thou  sJialt  remember  all  the  way  which  the  Lord  thy  God  hath  led 
thee. — Deut.  viii.  2. 

jj  T,  27  There  are  few  of  us  who  have  much  time  for  retrospect,  and 
there  is  a  very  deep  sense  in  which  it  is  wise  to  "forget  the 
things  that  are  behind,"  for  the  remembrance  of  them  may  burden  us  with 
a  miserable  entail  of  failure,  may  weaken  us  by  vain  regrets,  may  unfit  us 
for  energetic  action  in  the  living  and  available  present.  But  oblivion  is 
foolish  if  it  is  continual,  and  a  remembered  past  has  treasures  in  it  which 
we  can  little  afford  to  lose.  It  is  hard  to  recognise  our  Father  God  in  the 
bustle  and  hurry  of  our  daily  life,  and  the  meaning  of  each  event  can  only 
be  seen  when  it  is  seen  in  its  relation  to  the  rest  of  a  life.  Just  as  a  land- 
scape, which  we  may  look  at  without  the  smallest  perception  of  its  beauty, 
becomes  another  thing  when  the  genius  of  a  painter  puts  it  on  canvas,  and 
its  symmetry  and  proportion  become  more  manifest,  and  an  ethereal  clear- 
ness broods  over  it,  and  its  colours  are  seen  to  be  deeper  than  our  eyes  had 
discerned,  so  the  common  events  of  life,  trivial  and  insignificant  while  they 
are  passing,  become,  when  painted  on  the  canvas  of  memory,  nobler  and 
greater,  and  we  understand  them  more  completely  than  we  can  do  whilst 
they  are  passing. 

We  need  to  be  at  the  goal  in  order  to  judge  of  the  road.  The  parts  are 
only  explicable  when  we  see  the  whole.  The  full  interpretation  of  to-day 
is  reserved  for  eternity.  But,  by  combining  and  massing  and  presenting 
the  consequences  of  the  apparently  insignificant  and  isolated  events  of  the 
past,  memory  helps  us  to  a  clearer  perception  of  God  and  a  better  under- 
standing of  our  own  lives.  On  the  mountain  summit  a  man  can  look  down 
all  along  the  valley  by  which  he  has  wearily  plodded,  and  understand  the 
meaning  of  the  divergences  in  the  road,  and  the  rough  places  do  not  look 
quite  so  rough  when  their  proportion  to  the  whole  is  a  little  more  clearly  in 
his  view. 

Only,  if  we  are  wisely  to  exercise  remembrance,  and  to  discover  God 
in  the  lives  which,  whilst  they  are  passing,  had  no  perception  of  Him,  we 
must  take  into  account  what  the  meaning  of  all  life  is — that  is,  to  make 
men  of  us  after  the  pattern  of  His  will. 

"Not  enjoyment,  and  not  sorrow. 
Is  our  destined  end  or  way." 

But  the  growth  of  Christ-like  and  God-pleasing  character  is  the  Divine 
purpose,  and  should  be  the  human  aim  of  all  lives.  Our  tasks,  our  joys, 
our  sorrows,  our  gains,  our  losses — these  are  all  but  the  scaft'olding,  and 
the  scaffolding  is  only  there  in  order  that  course  upon  course  may  rise  the 
temple — palace  of  a  spirit,  devoted  to,  shaped  and  inhabited  by,  our  Father, 
God. 

It  is  possible  to  remember  vanished  joys,  and  to  confer  upon  them  by 
remembrance  a  kind  of  gentle  immortality  ;  and,  thus  remembered,  they 
are  ennobled,  for  all  the  gross  material  body  of  them,  as  it  were,  is  got  rid 
of,  and  only  the  fine  spirit  is  left.  The  roses  bloom,  and  over  bloom,  and 
drop,  but  a  poignant  perfume  is  distilled  from  the  fallen  petals.  The 
departed  are  grealened  by  distance  ;  when  they  are  gone,  we  recognise  the 
angels  that  we  entertained  unawares  :  and  that  recognition  is  no  illusion, 
but  it  is  the  disclosure  of  the  real  character,  to  which  they  were  sc«netimes 
untrue  and  we  were  often  blind. 

362 


REMEMBER  AND   REPENT. 

Remember,  therefore,  front  whence  thou  artfalkn^  attd  repent  attd  do  the 
first  works. — Rev.  ii.  5. 

December  28  ^^  ^°°^  ^^'^^  upon  a  past,  of  which  God  gave  us  the  warp, 
and  we  had  to  put  in  the  woof.  The  warp  is  all  bright  and 
pure.  The  threads  that  have  crossed  it  from  our  shuttles  are  many  of  them 
very  dark,  and  all  of  them  stained  in  some  part.  So  let  us  take  the  year 
that  has  gone,  and  spread  them  out  by  the  agency  of  this  servant  of  the 
court,  Memory,  before  the  supreme  judge.  Conscience. 

Let  us  remember,  that  we  may  be  warned  and  directed.  We  shall 
understand  the  true  moral  character  of  our  actions  a  great  deal  better  when 
we  look  back  upon  them  calmly,  and  when  all  the  rush  of  temptation  and 
the  seducing  whispers  of  our  own  weak  wills  are  silenced.  There  is  nothing 
more  terrible,  in  one  aspect,  there  is  nothing  more  salutary  and  blessed  in 
another,  than  the  difference  between  the  front  view  and  the  back  of  any 
temptation  to  which  we  yield — all  radiant  and  beautiful  on  the  hither  side, 
and  when  we  get  past  it  and  look  back  at  it,  all  hideous.  Like  some  of 
those  painted  canvases  upon  the  theatre  stage  :  seen  from  the  pit,  with  the 
delusive  brilliancy  of  the  footlights  thrown  upon  them,  they  look  beautiful 
works  of  art ;  seen  at  the  back,  dirty  and  cobwebed  canvas,  all  splashes 
and  spots  and  uglinesses.  Let  us  be  thankful  if  memory  can  show  us  the 
reverse  side  of  the  temptations  that  on  the  near  side  were  so  seductive. 

It  is  when  you  see  a  sketch  of  your  life  that  you  understand  the 
significance  of  the  single  deeds  in  them.  We  are  so  apt  to  isolate  our 
actions  that  we  are  startled,  and  it  is  a  wholesome  shock  when  we  see  how, 
without  knowing  it,  we  have  dropped  into  a  habit.  When  each  temptation 
comes,  as  the  moments  are  passing,  we  say,  "  Oh,  just  this  once !  Just 
this  once ! "  And  the  acts  that  we  thought  isolated  we  find  out  to  our 
horror — our  wholesome  horror — have  become  a  chain  that  binds  and  holds 
us.  Look  back  over  the  year,  and  drag  its  events  to  the  bar  of  Conscience, 
and  I  shall  be  surprised  if  you  do  not  find  out  that  you  have  fallen  into 
wrong  habits  that  you  never  dreamed  had  dominion  over  you.  So  I  say, 
Remember  and  repent. 

I  do  not  want  to  exaggerate,  I  do  not  want  to  urge  upon  you  one-sided 
views  of  your  character  or  conduct.  I  give  all  credit  to  many  excellences, 
many  acts  of  sacrifice,  many  acts  of  service  ;  and  yet  I  say  that  the  main 
reason  why  any  of  us  have  a  good  opinion  of  ourselves  is  because  we  have 
no  knowledge  of  ourselves ;  and  that  the  safest  attitude  for  all  of  us,  in 
looking  back  over  what  we  have  made  of  life,  is,  hands  on  mouths,  and 
mouths  in  dust,  and  the  cry  coming  from  them,  "  Unclean  !  unclean  !  " 

A  little  mud  in  a  stream  may  not  be  perceptible  when  you  take  a  wine- 
glassful  of  it  and  look  at  it,  but  if  you  take  a  riverful  or  a  lakeful  you  will 
soon  see  the  taint. 

The  best  use  the  memory  can  serve  for  us  is  that  the  remembrance 
should  drive  us  closer  to  Jesus  Christ,  and  make  us  cling  more  closely  to 
Him.  That  past  can  be  cancelled,  these  multitudinous  sins  can  be  forgiven. 
Memory  should  be  one  of  the  strongest  strands  in  the  cord  that  binds  our 
helplessness  to  the  all-forgiving  and  all-cleansing  Christ. 

363 


FUTURE  ANTICIPATION. 

Looking  for  and  earnestly  desiring  the  coming  of  the  day  of  God. — • 
2  Pet.  iii.  12. 

Keep  yourself  awake  first,  and  then  let  the  waking,  wide- 
December  29.  J  1     ,     ,  •       /-  IT-, 

opened  eye,  be  looking  forward.     It  is  the  very  dtjjerentia, 

so  to  speak,  the  characteristic  mark  and  distinction  of  the  Christian  notion 

of  life,  that  it  shifts  the  centre  of  gravity  from  the  present  into  the  future, 

and  makes  that  which  is  to  come  of  far  more  importance  than  that  which 

is,  or  which  has  been.     No  man  is  living  up  to  the  height  of  his  Christian 

responsibilities  or  privileges  unless  there  stands  out  before  him,  as  the  very 

goal  and  aim  of  his  whole  life,  what  can  never  be  realised  until  he  has 

passed  within  the  veil,  and  is  at  rest  in  the  "  secret  place  of  the  Most 

High."    To  live  for  the  future  is,  in  one  aspect,  the  very  definition  of  a 

Christian. 

It  is  not  for  us,  as  it  is  for  men  in  the  world,  to  fix  our  hopes  for  the 
future  on  abstract  laws  of  the  progress  of  humanity,  or  the  evolution  of  the 
species,  or  the  gradual  betterment  of  the  world,  and  the  like, — all  these 
may  be  true  ;  I  say  nothing  about  them.  But  what  we  have  to  fill  our 
future  with  is  that  that  same  Jesus  "shall  so  come  in  like  manner  as 
ye  have  seen  Him  go."  No  man  can  rightly  understand  the  whole  contents 
of  the  blessed  proclamation,  "Christ  has  come,"  unless  he  ends  the 
sentence  with  '*  and  Christ  will  come."  Blessed  is  *'  that  servant  whom 
the  lord,  when  he  cometh,  shall  find  watching." 

Of  course,  I  need  not  remind  you  that  much  for  which  that  second 
coming  of  the  Lord  is  precious,  and  an  object  of  hope  to  the  world  and  the 
Church,  is  realised  by  the  individual  in  the  article  of  Death.  Whether 
Christ  comes  to  the  world  or  I  go  to  Christ,  the  important  thing  is  that 
there  result  union  and  communion,  the  reign  of  righteousness  and  peace, 
the  felicities  of  the  heavenly  state. 

And  so,  dear  brother,  just  because  of  the  uncertainty  that  drapes  the 
future,  and  which  we  are  often  tempted  to  make  a  reason  for  dismissing  the 
anticipation  of  it  from  our  minds,  we  ought  the  more  earnestly  to  give  heed 
that  we  keep  that  end  ever  before  us,  and  whether  it  is  reached  by  His 
coming  to  us,  or  our  going  to  Him,  anticipate,  by  the  power  of  realising 
faith  grasping  the  firm  words  of  Revelation,  the  unimaginable,  and — until 
it  is  experienced — the  incommunicable  blessedness  revealed  in  these  great, 
simple  words,  "So  shall  we  ever  be  with  the  Lord." 

364 


OUR  UNREVEALED  FUTURE. 

For  I  reckon  that  the  sufferings  of  this  present  time  are  not  worthy 
to  be  compared  with  the  glory  which  shall  be  revealed  to  its-ward. — 
Rom.  viii.  i8. 

The  fact  of  sonship  makes  us  quite  sure  of  the  future.  I  am 
not  concerned  to  appraise  the  relative  value  of  the  various 
arguments  and  proofs,  or,  it  may  be,  presumptions,  which  may  recommend 
the  doctrine  of  a  future  life  to  men,  but  it  seems  to  me  that  the  strongest 
reasons  for  believing  in  another  world  are  these  two  :  first,  that  Jesus  Christ 
was  raised  from  the  dead  and  has  gone  up  there  ;  and,  second,  that  a  man 
here  can  pray  and  trust  and  love  God,  and  feel  that  he  is  His  child.  We 
are  the  children  of  God  now,  and  if  we  are  children  now,  we  shall  be 
grown  up  some  time.  Childhood  leads  to  maturity.  The  infant  becornes 
a  man. 

That  is  to  say,  he  that  here,  in  an  infantile  way,  is  stammering  with  his 
poor  unskilled  lips  the  name  "Abba  !  Father  !  "  will  one  day  come  to  speak 
it  fully.  He  that  dimly  trusts,  he  that  partially  loves,  he  that  can  lift  up  his 
heart  in  some  more  or  less  unworthy  prayer  and  aspiration  after  God,  in  all 
these  emotions  and  exercises,  has  the  great  proof  in  himself  that  such 
emotions,  such  relationship,  can  never  be  put  an  end  to.  The  roots  have 
gone  down  through  the  temporal,  and  have  laid  hold  of  the  eternal.  Any- 
thing seems  to  me  to  be  more  credible  than  that  a  man  who  can  look  up 
and  say,  "  My  Father  ! "  shall  be  crushed  by  what  befals  the  mere  outside  of 
him  ;  anything  seems  to  me  to  be  more  believable  than  to  suppose  that  the 
nature  which  is  capable  of  these  elevating  emotions  and  aspirations  of 
confidence  and  hope,  which  can  know  God  and  yearn  after  Him,  and  can 
love  Him,  is  going  to  be  wiped  out  like  a  microscopic  insect  by  the  finger 
of  Death.  The  material  has  nothing  to  do  with  these  feelings,  and  if  I 
know  myself,  in  however  feeble  and  imperfect  a  degree,  to  be  the  son  of 
God,  I  carry  in  the  conviction  the  very  pledge  and  seal  of  immortality, 
**  That  is  a  thought  whose  very  sweetness  yieldeth  proof  that  it  was  bom 
for  immortality."  "We  are  the  sons  of  God,"  therefore  we  shall  always 
be  so,  in  all  worlds,  and  whatsoever  may  become  of  this  poor  wrappage  in 
which  my  soul  dwells. 

The  consciousness  of  belonging  to  another  order  of  things,  because  I  am 
God's  child,  will  make  me  sure  that  when  I  have  done  with  earth,  the  tie 
that  binds  me  to  my  Father  will  not  be  broken,  but  that  I  shall  go  home, 
where  I  shall  be  fully  and  for  ever  all  that  I  so  imperfectly  began  to  be  here, 
where  all  gaps  in  my  character  shall  be  filled  up,  and  the  half-completed 
circle  of  my  heavenly  perfectness  shall  grow  like  the  crescent  moon  into 
full-orbed  beauty. 

365 


THE  FUTURE   UNKNOWN. 

Ye  know  not  what  shall  be  on  the  morrow. — James  iv.  14. 

You  can  only  know  facts  when  the  facts  are  communicated. 
You  may  speculate  and  argue  and  guess  as  much  as  you 
like,  but  that  does  not  thin  the  darkness  one  bit.  The  unborn  child  has 
no  more  faculty  or  opportunity  for  knowing  what  the  life  upon  earth  is  like 
than  man  here,  in  the  world,  has  for  knowing  that  life  beyond.  The 
chrysalis's  dreams  about  what  it  would  be  when  it  was  a  butterfly  would  be 
as  reliable  as  a  man's  imagination  of  what  a  future  life  will  be.  So  let  us 
feel  two  things  : — Let  us  be  thankful  that  we  do  not  know,  for  the  ignorance 
is  a  sign  of  the  greatness  ;  and  then,  let  us  be  sure  that  just  the  very 
mixture  of  knowledge  and  ignorance  which  we  have  about  another  world 
is  precisely  the  food  which  is  most  fitted  to  nourish  imagination  and  hope. 
If  we  had  more  knowledge,  supposing  it  could  be  given,  of  the  conditions 
of  that  future  life,  it  would  lose  some  of  its  power  to  attract. 

Ignorance  is  not  always  repellent — blank  ignorance  is ;  but  ignorance 
shot  with  knowledge  like  a  tissue  which,  when  you  hold  it  one  way  seems 
all  black,  and  when  you  tilt  it  another,  seems  golden,  stimulates  men's 
desires,  hopes,  and  imagination.  So  let  us  thankfully  acquiesce  in  the 
limited  knowledge.  "  Fools  can  ask  questions  which  wise  men  cannot 
answer,  and  will  not  ask." 

There  are  questions  which,  sometimes,  when  we  are  thinking  about  our 
own  future,  and  sometimes  when  we  see  dear  ones  go  away  into  the  mist, 
become  to  us  almost  torture.  It  is  easy  to  put  them  ;  it  is  not  so  easy  to 
say,  "Thank  God,  we  cannot  answer  them  yet  !"  If  we  could  it  would 
only  be  because  the  experience  of  earth  was  adequate  to  measure  the  ex- 
perience of  heaven ;  and  that  would  be  to  drop  the  future  down  to  the  low 
levels  of  this  present.  Let  us  be  thankful,  then,  that  so  long  as  we  can  only 
speak  in  language  derived  from  the  experiences  of  earth,  we  have  yet  to 
learn  the  vocabulary  of  heaven.  Let  us  be  thankful  that  our  best  help  to 
know  what  we  shall  be  is  to  reverse  much  of  what  we  are,  and  that  the 
loftiest  and  most  positive  declarations  concerning  the  future  lie  in  negatives 
like  these  :  *'  I  saw  no  temple  therein."  *'  There  shall  be  no  night  there." 
*' There  shall  be  no  curse  there."  "There  shall  be  no  more  sighing  nor 
weeping,  for  the  former  things  are  passed  away.' 

The  white  mountains  keep  their  secret  well  ;  not  until  we  have  passed 
through  the  black  rocks  that  make  the  throat  of  the  pass  on  the  summit, 
shall  we  see  the  broad  and  shining  plains  beyond  the  hills.  Let  us  be 
thankful  for,  and  own  the  attractions  of,  the  knowledge  that  is  wrapt  in 
ignorance,  and  thankfully  say,  "  Now  are  we  the  sons  of  God,  and  it  doth 
not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be." 

366 


SUBJECT    INDEX 


PAGE 

A  Better  and  an  Enduring  Substance 307 

*'  Abide  in  Me,  and  I  in  you  " 70 

Abiding  Blessedness,  The  Christian  Life  one  of         ....  73 

A  Breviary  of  Christian  Graces          .......  109 

A  Bright  Assurance  .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .94 

A  Call  to  Faith  and  Obedience          .......  204 

Access  to  God,  The  Christian's  Direct      ......  54 

A  Companionship  that  Cheers  ........  323 

Acquaintance  with  God    .........  181 

A  Dark  Chamber  in  every  Heart      .......  36 

A  Dark  Fear   ...........  93 

A  Father's  Discipline       ..*......  299 

A  Glorious  Effort     .         .         ,         .         ,         .         .         .         ...  47 

A  Hope  born  in  the  Darkness  ........  356 

A  Hope  born  of  the  Day .........  357 

Aim  in  Life,  The  Need  of  a  Definite. — I. 352 

Aim  in  Life,  The  Need  of  a  Definite. — II 353 

Aim,  The,  of  all  God's  Corrections  .......  302 

A  Life-giving  Word  of  Power  .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .318 

All  Christian  Living  a  Showing  Forth  of  Christ's  Death    ...  6 

All-comprehensive  Law,  The   ........  142 

All-granting  Love  of  Christ,  The 178 

All  have  Sinned       ..........  194 

*'A11  shall  know  Me" 182 

AH  Strength  in  Christ 250 

All  Truth  based  upon  Christianity    .......  106 

Ally,  Our,  in  our  Warfare  with  Ourselves  .         .         .         .         •193 

A  Love  that  shrinks  from  no  Sacrifice       .         .         .         .         .         .104 

Alternative,  The  Great    ,         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         •319 

Amulet,  The    ...........  256 

A  Mutual  Friendship        .........  243 

A  Mutual  Indwelling        ......••,  71 

A  New  Name  and  a  New  Nature     ....••.  233 

Angel  of  the  Lord,  The •        •         .  189 

Anticipation,  Future         .........  364 

Antidote  of  Care,  Thanksgiving  an  ,         .         .         .         ,         ,         .  298 

Antidote,  The,  to  all  Despondency  ..•••••  206 

367 


SUBJECT  INDEX 


Anxiety,  The  Cure  for      . 

Arrested  Development,  Interrupted  Lives 

A  Shelter  from  the  Storm 

Assurance,  A  Bright 

Assurance,  A  Triumphant 

A  Sufficiency  for  all  Need 

As  we  Sow,  we  Reap 

A  Triumphant  Assurance 

A  Worthy  Calling    . 

Bearing  Fruit  . 

Beast,  The  Mark  of  the 

*'  Be  careful  for  Nothing  " 

Beggar's  Petition,  The 

Beloved  Son,  The    . 

Blessedness,  The,  and  Honour  of  Helping  Jesus  Christ 

Blessedness,  The  Christian  Life  one  of  Abiding 

Blessedness,  The,  of  a  Right  Choice 

Blessedness,  The,  of  Contact  with  the  Suffering  Christ 

Blessed  Unconsciousness . 

Blessing,  Reciprocal         .         . 

Blind  Man,  Jesus  and  the 

Blind,  The,  Watchers  at  the  Cross 

Blind  to  our  own  Faults  . 

Blood  of  Christ,  The  Significance  of  the 

Blood  of  the  Lamb,  Victory  through  the 

Book  of  Life,  Names  in  the 

Book  of  Life,  The    . 

Breviary,  A,  of  Christian  Graces 

Breadth,  The,  of  the  Love  of  Christ 

Brightness,  Progressive     . 

Brother,  Our,  in  Heaven . 

Bruised  Reed  Restored,  The    , 

Call,  A,  to  Faith  and  Obedience 

"  Called  to  be  Saints  "      . 

Calling,  A  Worthy  . 

Call,  The  Master's  . 

Captain,  Our    .... 

Captain,  The,  of  the  Lord's  Host 

Causes,  The,  of  Secret  Discipleship 

Character,  Strength  of 

Charge,  The,  to  the  Temple  Watchers 

Choice,  The  Blessedness  of  a  Right 

Choice,  The  Responsible  Power  of 

Christ,  All  Strength  in 

Christ  Glorified  in  His  Saints  . 

Christian  Gladness  . 

Christian  Graces,  A  Breviary  of 

Christian  Ideal,  The 

Christianity,  All  Truth  based  upon 

36S 


297 
238 
187 

94 
18s 

314 
348 
185 
140 

63 

18 

295 

174 

358 

89 

73 

30 

91 

321 

305 
176 
294 

143 
119 

26 
226 
228 
109 
280 
237 
329 

33 

204 
141 
140 
177 

125 

191 

14 

65 

303 

30 

219 

250 

221 

80 

109 

138 
106 


SUBJECT  INDEX 


Chr 
Clir 
Chr 
Chr 
Chr: 
Chr 
Chr 
Chr 
Chr 
Chr 
Chr 
Chr 
Chr 
Chr 
Chr: 
Chr 
Chr 
Chr: 
Chr: 
Chr 
Chr 
Chr 
Chr 
Chr: 
Chr 
Chr 
Chr: 
Chr 
Chr 
Chr 
Chr 
Chr: 
Chr 
Chr 
Chr 


ous  and  Redeemins:  Death 


stian  Joy  a  Duty 

stian  Life,  The,  one  of  Abiding  Blessedness 

stian  Life,  The,  one  of  Steadfast  Persistence 

stian  Life,  The  Purity  and  Beauty  of  the 

stian  Service  Rewarded,  The  Humblest 

stian,  The  Permanent  Life  of  the 

stian  Living,  All,  a  Showing  Forth  of  Christ's  Death 

stian  Self-possession  . 

St,  In  Remembrance  of 

stian's.  The,  Aim  Ultimately  Reached 

stian's,  The,  Character 

stian's.  The,  Consecration. 

stian's,  The,  Direct  Access  to  God 

st,  Our  Narrow  Vision  of  . 

st's  Coming  and  Men's  Coming . 

st's  Coming  to  the  World. — L     . 

st's  Coming  to  the  World. — II.  . 

st's  Conflict,  The  Reward  of 

st's  Incarnation  in  order  to  His  Vicar 

st's  Own  Claim  .... 

st's  Unsought  Love   . 

st's  Voluntary  Sufferings    . 

st's  Yearning  Compassion  . 

st.  The  Companion  of  the  Lonely 

St,  The  Exalted 

st,  The  Faithful  Love  of  the 

st  the  Fosterer  of  Incipient  and  Impe: 

st,  The  Indwelling     . 

st.  The  Indwelling  Life  of 
The  Loneliness  of 
The  Love  of  the  Departing  . 
The  Rest  of  Finding 

st.  The  Rule  of  .         .         . 

st.  The  Seeking 

st  the  True  Object  of  our  Endeavour 
Citizenship  in  the  Heavens 
Clinging,  Fleeing  and       .         .         , 
Comforting  God,  The       .         •         . 
Communion,  Service  and 
Communion  with  God 
Companionship  that  Cheers,  A 
Companion,  The,  of  the  Lonely  Christ 
Compassion,  Christ's  Yearning 
Conduct,  The  One  Rule  of 
Confidence,  A  Good  Reason  for 
Confidence,  Triumphant  . 
Conscience,  The  Voice  of 
Consciousness  of  God's  Presence,  The 
Consciousness,  Rest  and  . 
Consecration,  The  Chris'aan's  . 
Contemplation  of  God's  Love  to  us,  The 

369 


rfect 


st, 
st, 
st. 


Good 


S7 

73 
72 
66 
90 

74 
6 

306 

I 

355 

53 

56 

54 

248 

272 

268 

269 

151 
360 
246 
202 
312 
218 

313 

328 

336 

34 

9 

69 

310 

334 
289 

57 
201 

29 
225 
267 
207 
304 
324 
323 
313 
218 

139 
79 
251 
265 
129 

lOI 

56 
46 


BB 


SUBJECT   INDEX 

Continuous  Strength 

Cost  of  the  World,  The  Heavy 

Costly  and  Fatal  Help     . 

Courage,  The  Highest  Type  of 

Courage  Unwavering  and  Immovable 

Covenant,  The  New 

Covering  Wing,  The 

Cross,  The  Blind  Watchers  at  the 

Cross,  The,  the  Proof  of  God's  Love 

Crown  of  Service,  The     . 

Cry  from  the  Depths,  The 

Cup  of  Salvation,  The 

Cure  for  Anxiety,  The 

Cure  of  Secret  Discipleship,  The 

Dark,  A,  Chamber  in  every  Heart 

Dark  Fear,  A . 

Darkness,  A  Hope  born  in  the 

David,  The  Son  of  . 

Dawn  to  Noon,  From 

Day,  A  Hope  born  of  the         • 

Death  and  Growth  . 

Death  and  Life 

Death,  Faith  Triumphant  in     . 

Death,  The  Sleep  of 

Death,  The  Voice  which  Softens  the  Grimness  of 

Delight  in  God's  Will       . 

Deliverance  for  the  Captives 

Depths,  The  Cry  from  the 

Depth,  The  Height  and,  of  the  Love  of  Christ 

Desire  for  God 

"Despising  the  Shame"  . 

Despondency,  The  Antidote  to  aU 

Detachment  from  Old  Associations 

Dew  of  God's  Grace,  The 

Direct  Access  to  God,  The  Christian's 

Disciple  as  his  Lord,  The 

Discipleship,  Secret 

Discipleship,  The  Causes  of  Secret 

Discipleship,  The  Cure  of  Secret 

Discipleship,  The  Miseries  of  Secret 

Discipline,  A  Father's 

DiscipHne,  The  Guiding  Principle  of  Christian 

Divine  Host,  The,  and  the  Human  Guests 

Divine-Human  Saviour,  The    . 

Divine  Individualising  Knowledge  and  Care 

Divine  Indweller,  The 

Divine  Redeemer,  The 

Divine  Warrant,  Our 

Divine  Wisdom 

Doing  Nothing,  Lost  by 

370 


PAGE 

210 

286 
112 
III 
167 
186 
294 
42 

52 
92 

297 
17 

36 

93 
35<3 
175 
239 
357 
283 
116 
260 
103 

3^7 
169 
123 
92 
282 
130 
158 
206 

354 

63 

54 

231 

13 

14 

17 

16 

299 

301 

309 

335 

227 

341 
107 
188 
127 
60 


SUBJECT   INDEX 


Do  you  know  Jesus  ? 
Dwelling  in  God's  House 


Earthly  Setting,  The,  the  Brighter  Rising 

Efifort,  A  Glorious    . 

Empire  of  Fear,  The 

Endeavour,  Christ  the  True  Object  of  our 

Enthusiasm  for  Righteousness 

Evil  Eye,  The 

Exaltation  above  Worldly  Good 

Expulsion  of  Fear,  The    . 

Eye,  The  Evil 

Faint,  Power  for  the 

Faith  and  Obedience,  A  Call  to 

Faithfulness,  God's  . 

Faithfulness,  Mercy  and  . 

Faith,  Joy  the  Result  of  . 

Faith,  Repentance  and     . 

Faith's  Vision  . 

Faith,  The  Attachments  of 

Faith,  The  Detachments  of 

Faith  the  Path  to  Glory    . 

Faith  Triumphant  in  Death 

False  Worship 

Familiarisation  of  Habit  . 

Fascinating  Influences  of  the  World,  The 

Fatherhood  and  Sonship  . 

Father's  Discipline,  A 

Faults,  Blind  to  our  Own 

Fear,  A  Dark  . 

Fear  God 

Fear,  Hope  and 

"  Fear  not,  only  Believe  " 

Fear,  The  Empire  of 

Fear,  The  Expulsion  of   . 

Fear,  The  Mission  of 

Finding,  Seeking  and 

Fleeing  and  Clinging 

Flesh,  The  Power  of  the 

"Follow  Me" 

Following  Afar  Off  . 

Forgiveness,  The  Peace  of 

For  His  Sake 

For  His  Sake 

Forerunner,  Jesus  the 

Freedom  and  Blessedness  of  Christ's  Service,  The 

Friend  of  God,  The 

Friendship,  A  Mutual 

Friendship,  Mutual  , 

From  Dawn  to  Noon 

371 


PAGE 
249 

240 

47 
148 

29 
114 
25s 
113 
151 
25s 

208 

204 

20 

21 

82 

^73 

258 

257 
259 
224 
260 

38 

144 

253 
43 
299 
143 
93 
149 
316 

315 

148 

151 

150 
200 
267 

254 
203 

325 
122 

98 

215 
126 

171 

241 

243 
120 

239 


SUBJECT  INDEX 


Fruit,  Bearing  .... 

Fulness  of  God's  Supply,  The 

Future  Anticipation 

Future,  Our  Unrevealed 

Future,  The  Present  the  Prophecy  of  the 

Future,  The,  the  Perfecting  of  the  Present 

Future  Unknown,  The     . 

Gift  of  the  Spirit,  The      . 

Gift,  The,  which  enhances  Joy 

"Gird  up  your  Loins"     . 

Giving,  God's  Method  of 

Gladness,  Chiistian 

Glass,  The  Sea  of    . 

Glory,  Faith  the  Path  to 

God,  Acquaintance  with  . 

*'  God  Buries  His  Workmen,  and  carries  on 

God,  Communion  with 

God,  Desire  for        .         .         . 

God,  Fear        .... 

God,  Guests  of         .         .         . 
V-God  guides  His  People  into  Work 

God,  Knowing 

God  leads  His  Sheep  into  Rest 

God  Manifest  in  the  Flesh 

God,  Myself  for       . 

God,  Our  Incomplete  Possession  of 

God  proves  His  own  Love 

God's  Answer  to  the  Soul's  Cry 

God's  Boundless  Riches   . 

God's  Correction,  The  Aim  of  all 

God's  Faithfulness   . 

God's  Familiarity  with  His  Friends 

God's  Gift  of  Himself  to  us 

God's  Grace,  The  Dew  of 

God's  Great  Desire  . 

God,  Sin  and  .... 

God's  Inexhaustible  Mercy 

God's  Love  deeper  than  our  Sins 

God's  Love  Demonstrated 

God's  Love,  The  Proof  of 

God's  Love  to  us,  The  Contemplation  of 

God's  Method  of  Giving  . 
v/  God's  Presence,  The  Consciousness  of 

God's  Promise  of  Grace  . 

God's  Supply,  The  Fulness  of . 

God's  Wing,  Sheltering  beneath 

God's  Writing  on  the  Heart 

God's  Word,  the  Ultimate  Purpose  of 

God,  The  (Comforting 

God,  The  Friend  of 


H 


Work  " 


63 

276 

364 

365 
2 

347 
366 

153 

^3 

59 

244 

80 

22 

224 

181 

284 

324 
130 

149 
133 
292 
180 

291 

245 
165 

345 
108 

327 
343 
302 
20 
242 

163 
68 

145 

135 

95 

216 

105 
97 
46 

2-14 
129 

67 
276 

2'; 
16S 
263 
207 
241 


SUBJECT   INDEX 

PAGE 

God,  The  Mercy  of 19 

God,  The  Righteousness  of 23 

God,  The  Soul  longing  for 273 

God,  The  True  Source  of  the  Knowledge  of 184 

God,  Union  with      ..........  132 

God,  Worship 39 

Good  Reason  for  Confidence,  A 79 

Government  of  Self,  The 55 

Grace,  Miracles  of  .........         .  223 

Grace,  The  Dew  of  God's         ........  68 

Gratitude  of  Redeemed  Souls,  The  .......  78 

Greatness  of  Trifles,  The           ........  88 

Greatness,  True        .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .110 

Growth,  Death  and 283 

Guests  of  God.        .        • 133 

Habit,  Familiarisation  of.         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .  144 

Healer  and  the  Healed,  The 179 

Heaven,  Our  Brother  in  ........         .  329 

Heavy  Cost  of  the  World,  The          .......  5 

"  He  endured  the  Cross" 156 

Height  and  Depth  of  the  Love  of  Christ,  The 2S2 

Help,  Costly  and  Fatal 286 

Helper  of  the  Saints,  The  Ever-active 332 

Helper,  The  One 96 

Helping  Jesus  Christ,  The  Blessedness  and  Honour  of       .         .         .89 

Hesitating  to  Follow  Cririst       ........  205 

He  will  never  leave  us      .........  61 

Hidden  from  the  Wise  and  Prudent .         .         .         .         .         .         .11 

Hieroglyphics,  Imperishable     .         .         .         .         .         .         .         "37 

Holy  Spirit  of  Promise,  The     ........  344 

Hope  and  Fear 316 

Hope  Born  in  the  Darkness,  A 356 

Hope  Born  of  the  Day,  A         .......         .  357 

Hope,  Memory  and          .........  163 

Hope,  The  Discipline  of.         •         .         .         .         .         .         .         .212 

Hope,  The  Grace  of         ........         .  214 

Hope,  The  Object  of  Christian          .......  213 

Hope,  The  Perfection  of  .         .         .         .         •         .         .         .         .211 

Host  and  Guest  in  One    .........  220 

Host,  The  Divine,  and  the  Human  Guests        .....  309 

House,  Dwelling  in  God's         ........  131 

How  to  get  Wisdom          .........  12S 

How  to  Obey  an  Apparently  Impossible  Injunction  ....  296 

Human  Guests,  The  Divine  Host  and  the          .....  309 

Human  Remedies  for  Sin  Unavailing        ......  198 

Humblest  Christian  Service  Rewarded,  The      .....  90 

Ideal,  The  Christian         ••......•  138 

*' /have  Sinned"    ...                 ....••  195 

373 


SUBJECT   INDEX 


Impassable   Gulf,    The,    between   Christianity   and   other   Religious 

Systems    ..... 
Imperishable  Hieroglyphics       .         . 
Incompleteness  of  Scripture,  The      . 
Individual  Responsibility .         .         • 
Indwelling,  A  Mutual       .         .         . 
Indwelling  Christ,  The     .         ,         • 
Indwelling  Life  of  Christ,  The . 
In  Remembrance  of  Christ 
Interrupted  Lives,  Arrested  Development 
Invitation,  The  Wonderful 
Is  Christ's  Death  a  Real  Benefit  to  me  ? 
*' Is  my  Name  Written  There?" 
Isolations,  Life's       .... 
"  It  is  the  Lord  "     .... 
*' It  passeth  Knowledge"  .         • 

Ittai  of  Oath    .         .         .         •         • 

Jesus  and  the  Blind  Man  . 

Jesus  Christ,  Self-abnegation  before  . 

Jesus  Christ,  The  Blessedness  and  Honour  of  Helpin 

Jesus  Christ,  The  Ever-present  Love  of 

Jesus  ?  Do  you  know 

Jesus,  Sleeping  through    . 

Jesus  the  Forerunner 

Joy,  Christian,  a  Duty 

Joy,  The  Gift  which  enhances 

Joy,  The  Perfect,  of  a  Present  Salvation 

Joy  the  Result  of  Faith     . 

Joy  Unspeakable  and  Full  of  Glory  . 

Knowing  God 

Knowledge  and  Love 

Knowledge,  It  passeth 

Knowledge  of  God,  The  Source  of  the  True 

Law,  The  All-comprehensive    . 

Law  of  Life,  The 

Leader,  Our,  in  the  World's  Warfare 

Length  of  Christ's  Love,  The   . 

Life,  Death  and 

Life-giving  Word  of  Power,  A  . 

Life  of  Christ,  The  Indwelling 

Life's  Isolations 

Life,  The  Book  of   . 

Life,  The  Law  of     . 

Lifted  to  the  High  Level. 

Loneliness  of  Christ,  The 

Longing  for  God,  The  Soul      . 

Lord  that  healeth  thee,  The 

Lost  by  doing  Nothing 

374 


170 

262 

183 

71 

9 

69 

I 

238 

270 

99 
229 

311 
232 

32 

31 

176 

115 
89 

75 
249 

ICX) 

126 
87 
83 
84 
82 
81 

I  So 

7 

32 

184 

142 

137 
192 
281 
116 
318 
69 

3" 
228 

137 
209 
310 

273 

199 

60 


SUBJECT   INDEX 


Love,  Christ's  Unsought  . 

Love,  God  proves  His  own 

Love,  God's,  Deeper  than  our  Sins 

Love,  Knowledge  and 

Love  of  Christ,  The  All-granting 

Love  of  Christ,  The  Breadth  of  the 

Love  of  Christ,  The  Height  and  Depth  of 

Love  of  the  Christ,  The  Faithful 

Love  of  the  Christ,  The  INIanifested 

Love  of  the  Christ,  The  Unchilled 

Love  of  the  Departing  Christ,  The 

Love,  Peter's  Penitent. — L 

Love,  Peter's  Penitent. — II.     . 

Love's  Measure,  The  Paradox  of 

Love  that  is  Given,  The  . 

Love  that  Shrinks  from  no  Sacrifice. 

Love,  The  Cross  the  Proof  of  God's 

Love,  The  Length  of  Christ's  . 

Love,  The  Proof  of  God's 

Love,  The  Sanctity  of 

Love,  The  True  Object  of 

Manhood,  Our  Lord's  Perfect  . 

Manifested  Love  of  the  Christ,  The 

Mark  of  the  Beast,  The    . 

Master's  Call,  The  . 

Memorials  of  Victory        . 

Memory  and  Hope  .         . 

Mercy,  A  Message  of 

Mercy  and  Faithfulness    . 

Mercy,  God's  Inexhaustible 

Mercy  of  God,  The 

Message  of  Mercy,  A 

Might,  Strengthened  with  all   . 

Miracles  of  Grace    . 

Misdirected  Zeal 

Miseries  of  Secret  Discipleship,  The, 

Mission  of  Fear,  The 

Mission  of  Persecution,  The 

Mutual  Friendship  . 

Mutual  Friendship,  A 

Mutual  Indwelling,  A       .         , 

Myself  for  God 

Names  in  the  Book  of  Life 

Natural,  The,  a  Type  of  the  Spiritual 

Need,  A  Sufficiency  for  all 

Need  of  a  Divine  Revelation,  The 

New  Covenant,  The 

New  Name,  A,  and  a  New  Nature 

New  Nature,  A  New  Name  and  a 

375 


tne 


PAGE 
202 

io8 

2l6 

7 
178 
280 
282 

336 
12 
76 

334 
48 

49 
279 

41 
104 

42 
281 

97 

8 

24 

35 

12 

18 

177 

235 

162 

146 

21 

95 

19 

146 

242 

223 

27 

16 

150 
308 
120 
243 
71 
165 

226 

45 
314 
147 
167 

233 
233 


SUBJECT   INDEX 


New,  The,  and  the  Living  Way 

•*  No  Cross,  No  Crown  " 

*'  Now  is  the  Accepted  Time  " 

Obedience,  A  Call  to  Faith  and 

Object  of  Love,  the  True 

Object  of  our  Endeavour,  Christ  the  True 

One  Helper,  The     .... 

One  Rule  of  Conduct,  The 

Our  Ally  in  our  Warfsire  with  Ourselves 

Our  Brother  in  Heaven    . 

Our  Captain     ..... 

Our  Commander's  and  Our  Triumph 

Our  Divine  Warrant 

Our  God  for  Ever  and  Ever 

Our  Incomplete  Possession  of  God    . 

Our  Insignificant  and  Unfinished  Work 

Our  Interceding  Priest 

Our  Leader  in  the  World's  Warfare  . 

Our  Lord's  Divine  Nature 

Our  Lord's  Perfect  Manhood 

Our  Narrow  Vision  of  Christ 

Our  Relation  to  our  Lord 

Our  Sonship  no  Pmipty  Title 

Our  Unrevealed  Future    . 

Paradox  of  Love's  Measure,  The 

Pardon,  Vengeance  and   , 

Path  of  Suffering,  The 

Patient  Teacher,  The,  and  the  Slow  Scholars 

Paul's  Life's  Work,  The  Spirit  oi      . 

Peace  of  Forgiveness,  The 

Pentecost,  The  Promise  of  the . 

Perfect  Joy  of  a  Present  Salvation,  The 

Perfect  Likeness,  The  Perlect  Vision  and  the 

Perfect  Manhood,  Our  Lord's 

Perfect  Vision,  The,  and  the  Perfect  Likeness 

Permanent  Life  of  the  Christian,  The 

Persecution  for  Christ's  Sake 

Persecution,  The  Mission  of 

Peter's  Love  a  Type  of  ours 

Peter's  Penitent  Love. — I. 

Peter's  Peniient  Love. — II. 

Petition,  The  Beggar's 

Power,  A  Life-giving  Word  of 

Power  for  the  Faint. 

Power  for  Service,  Unconscious 

Power  from  on  High 

Prayer,  Transformation  through 

Present  Salvation,  The  Perfect  Joy  of  a 

Present,  The  Future  the  Perfecting  of  the 

376 


PAGE 
124 

320 

204 

24 
29 
96 

193 
329 
125 

188 
164 

345 
285 

331 
192 

85 

35 
248 

4 

44 

365 

279 
117 

155 
247 
236 
122 
152 
84 
121 

35 
121 

74 
230 

308 

50 

48 

49 

174 

318 

208 

28 

340 

351 

84 

347 


SUBJECT   INDEX 

Present,  The  Imperfect    .... 

Present,  The,  the  Prophecy  of  the  Future 

Priest,  Our  Interceding    . 

Progressive  Brightness 

Promise  of  Grace,  God's  .         .         , 

Promise  of  the  Pentecost,  The . 

Proof  of  God's  Love,  The 

Proof  of  God's  Love,  The  Cross  the . 

Pupilage,  The  Saints' 

Purity  and  Beauty  of  the  Christian  Life,  The 


Reasons  for  Unfaithfulness 
Reciprocal  Blessing .... 
Redeemed  Souls,  The  Gratitude  of  . 
Redeemed,  The  Royalty  of  the 
Redeemer,  The  Divine     . 
Refuge  of  the  Devout  Soul,  The 
Refuge  that  you  Need,  The 
Refuge,  You  Need  a         .         ,         . 
Relation  to  our  Lord,  Our         , 
Religion,  Whole-hearted  . 
Remember  and  be  Thankful     . 
Remember  and  Repent    .         . 
Remembrance  of  Christ,  In 
Repentance  and  Faith 
Responsibility,  Individual         .         . 
Rest  and  Consciousness    .         . 

Rest  and  Rule 

Rest,  God  leads  His  Sheep  into        , 

Rest  of  Finding  Christ,  The 

Revelation,  The  Need  of  a  Divine    . 

Reward  of  Christ's  Conflict,  The 

Riches,  God's  Boundless . 

Right  Choice,  The  Blessedness  of  a . 

Righteousness,  Enthusiasm  for 

Righteousness  of  God,  The       .         , 

Royalty  of  the  Redeemed,  The 

Rule  of  Christ,  The 

Rule,  Rest  and        .... 

Saint's  Gift  to  his  Lord,  The    . 
Saints,  The  Ever-active  Helper  of  the 
Saints'  Pupilage,  The 
Salvation,  The  Cup  of      . 
Salvation,  The  Perfect  Joy  of  a  Present 
Sanctity  of  Love,  The 
Satisfied  Soul  still  Seeking,  The 
Satisfied,  The  Longing  Soul     . 
Saul  and  Paul ..... 
Saviour,  The  Divine-Human   •         . 
Saviour,  The  Resting       .         . 

377 


PAGE 

2 
340 

67 

97 

42 

300 

66 

15 

305 
78 

58 
107 
326 
266 
264 

4 
287 
362 

363 
I 

173 

1S3 

lOI 

161 

291 

289 

147 

154 

343 

30 

114 

23 

58 

57 

161 

166 

332 

300 

350 
84 
8 
277 
27s 
234 
335 
330 


SUBJECT   INDEX 


Scripture,  The  Incompleteness  of 

Scripture,  The  Silence  of 

Sea  of  Glass,  The    . 

Search  that  always  Finds,  The 

Secret  Uiscipleship  . 

Secret  Discipleship,  The  Causes  of 

Secret  Discipleship,  The  Cure  of 

Secret  Discipleship,  The  Miseries  of 

Seeking  and  Finding 

Seeking  Christ,  The 

Self-abnegation  before  Jesus  Christ 

Self-possession,  Christian 

Self,  The  Government  of. 

Service  and  Communion  . 

Service,  The  Crown  of     . 

Service,  The  Incarnation  in  order  to  a  Life  of 

Service,  Unconscious  Power  for 

Service  with  which  Love  is  Honoured,  The 

Shelter  from  the  Storm,  A 

Sheltering  beneath's  God's  Wing 

Shepherd- King,  The 

Shepherd's  Love  for  the  Scattered  Flock,  The 

Significance  of  the  Blood  of  Christ,  The 

Silence  of  Scripture,  The 

Sin  and  God     . 

Sin  of  Sins,  The 

Sin,  The  Tyranny  of 

Sin,  True  and  False  Sorrow  for 

Sleeping  through  Jesus 

Sleep  of  Death,  The 

Son  of  David,  The 

Sonship,  Fatherhood  and 

Sonship,  Our,  no  Empty  Title 

Son,  The  Beloved    . 

Sorrow  according  to  God 

Sorrow  for  Sin,  True  and  False 

Sorrow,  The  Path  of 

Souls,  The  Gratitude  of  Redeemed 

Soul,  The  Habitual  Desire  of  the 

Soul,  The,  longing  for  God 

Soul,  The  Longing,  Satisfied    . 

Soul,  The  Satisfied,  still  Longing 

Source  of  the  True  Knowledge  of  God,  The 

Spirit  of  Might,  The  Possession  of  the 

Spirit  of  Paul's  Life's  Work,  The 

Spirit,  The  Gift  of  the      . 

S})irit,  The  Holy,  of  Promise   . 

Spiritual  Declension  and  Change 

Spiritual,  The  Natural  a  Type  of  the 

Steadfast  Persistence,  The  Christian  Life  one  of 

Strength,  All,  in  Christ 

378 


PAGE 

262 

261 

22 

288 

13 

14 

17 

16 

200 

201 

306 

55 

304 
52 

359 

28 

51 
187 

25 

290 

338 
119 
261 

135 
86 

n 
134 
100 
103 

175 

43 

44 

35^ 

13'^ 

■)j 

70 

274 

275 
277 
184 

339 
236 

153 

3!4 
252 

45 
72 

64 


SUBJECT  INDEX 

Strength,  Continuous 
Strengthened  with  all  Might     . 
Strength  of  Character 
Substance,  A  Better  and  an  Enduring 
Sufferings,  Christ's  Voluntary  . 
Suffering,  The  Path  of     . 
Sufficiency  for  all  Need,  A 

Thanksgiving  an  Antidote  of  Care    . 
The  Aim  of  all  God's  Correction 
The  All-comprehensive  Law     . 
The  All-granting  Love  of  Christ 

The  Amulet 

The  Angel  of  the  Lord     . 

The  Antidote  to  all  Despondency     . 

The  Attachments  of  Faith 

The  Beggar's  Petition 

The  Beloved  Son     .... 

The  Blessedness  and  Honour  of  Helping  Jesus  Christ 

The  Blessedness  of  a  Right  Choice 

The  Blessedness  of  Contact  with  the  Suffering  Christ 

The  Blind  Watchers  at  the  Cross 

The  Book  of  Life     .... 

The  Breadth  of  the  Love  of  Christ   . 

The  Bruised  Reed  Restored 

The  Captain  of  the  Lord's  Host 

The  Causes  of  Secret  Discipleship    . 

The  Certainty  of  Victory  . 

The  Charge  to  the  Temple  Watchers 

The  Christ  at  the  Door    . 

The  Christian  Aim  Ultimately  Realised 

The  Christian  Ideal 

The  Christian  Life  one  of  Abiding  Blessedness 

The  Christian  Life  one  of  Steadfast  Persistence 

The  Christian's  Character 

The  Christian's  Consecration    . 

The  Christian's  Direct  Access  to  God 

The  Comforting  God 

The  Companion  of  the  Lonely  Christ 

The  Consciousness  of  God's  Presence 

The  Covering  Wing 

The  Cross  the  Proof  of  God's  Love  . 

The  Crown  of  Service 

The  Cry  from  the  Depths 

The  Cup  of  Salvation 

The  Cure  for  Anxiety 

The  Cure  of  Secret  Discipleship 

The  Detachments  of  Faith 

The  Dew  of  God's  Grace . 

The  Disciple  as  his  Lord  . 

The  Discipline  of  Plope    . 

^70 


PAGE 
2IO 

312 

314 

298 
302 
142 
178 
256 
189 
206 

174 

358 

89 

30 

91 

294 

228 

280 

33 
191 

14 
278 

303 
217 

355 
138 

73 
72 

53 
56 

54 
207 

313 

129 

186 

42 

52 
92 

350 
297 

17 

259 

68 

231 

212 


SUBJECT   INDEX 


The  Divine  Host  and  the  Human  Guests 

The  Divine-Human  Saviour 

The  Divine  Indweller 

The  Divine  Redeemer 

The  Earthly  Setting,  the  Brighter  Rising 

The  Empire  of  Fear 

The  Ever-active  Helper  of  the  Saints 

The  Ever-present  Love  of  Jesus  Christ 

The  Evil  Eye 

The  Exalted  Christ .... 

The  Expulsion  of  Fear 

The  Faithful  Love  of  the  Christ 

The  Fascinating  Influences  of  the  World 

The  Freedom  and  Blessedness  of  Christ's  Service 

The  Friend  of  God 

The  Fulness  of  God's  Supply   . 

The  Future  the  Perfecting  of  the  Present 

The  Future  Unknown      ..... 

The  Gift  of  the  Spirit        .... 

The  Gift  which  enhances  Joy   .         ,         , 

The  Grace  of  Hope  .... 

The  Gradual  Extinction  of  God's  Light  in  the  Soul 

The  Gratitude  of  Redeemed  Souls    . 

The  Great  Alternative      .... 

The  Greatness  of  Trifles  .... 

The  Guiding  Principle  of  Christian  Discipline 

The  Habitual  Desire  of  the  Soul 

The  Healer  and  the  Healed 

The  Heavy  Cost  of  the  World 

The  Height  and  Depth  of  the  Love  of  Christ 

The  Highest  Type  of  Courage . 

The  Holy  Spirit  of  Promise 

The  Humblest  Christian  Service  Rewarded 

The  Impassable  Gulf  between  Christianity  and  other  Religious  Systems 

The  Imperfect  Present      .... 

The  Incarnation  in  order  to  a  Life  of  Service 

The  Incompleteness  of  Scripture 

The  Indwelling  Christ      .         .         . 

The  Indwelling  Life  of  Christ  . 

The  Law  of  Life      .... 

The  Length  of  Christ's  Love    .         • 

The  Loneliness  of  Christ  •         , 

The  Longing  Soul  Satisfied      .         . 

The  Lord  that  healeth  thee 

The  Love  of  the  Departing  Christ    . 

The  Love  that  is  Given    . 

The  Manifold  Love  of  the  Christ      , 

The  Mark  of  the  Beast    . 

The  Master's  Call    .... 

The  Mercy  of  God  .... 

The  Miseries  of  Secret  Discipleship. 

380 


PAGE 

335 
341 
107 

240 
148 
332 
75 
255 
328 
151 
336 
253 
171 
241 
276 

347 
366 

153 

^3 
214 

62 

78 
319 

88 
301 
274 
179 

5 

282 
112 

344 

90 

170 

346 

359 
262 

9 

69 

137 
281 

310 

275 
199 

334 
41 
12 
iS 

177 
19 
16 


SUBJECT  INDEX 


The  Mission  of  Fear        .... 

The  Mission  of  Persecution 

"Them  that  Sleep"         .         .         . 

The  Natural  a  Type  of  the  Spiritual 

The  Need  of  a  Definite  Aim  in  Life. — I. 

The  Need  of  a  Definite  Aim  in  Life. — IL 

The  Need  of  a  Divine  Revelation 

The  New  and  the  Living  Way . 

The  New  Covenant ..... 

The  Object  of  Christian  Hope 

The  One  Helper      ..... 

The  One  Rule  of  Conduct        .         . 

The  Paradox  of  Love's  Measure 

The  Path  of  Sorrow         .... 

The  Path  of  Suffering      .... 

The  Patient  Teacher  and  the  Slow  Scholars 

The  Peace  of  Forgiveness 

The  Perfect  Joy  of  a  Present  Salvation     . 

The  Perfection  of  Hope  .... 

The  Perfect  Vision  and  the  Perfect  Likeness 

The  Permanent  Life  of  the  Christian 

The  Possession  of  the  Spirit  of  Might 

The  Power  of  the  Flesh  .... 

The  Present  the  Prophecy  of  the  Future  . 

The  Promise  of  the  Pentecost  . 

The  Proof  of  God's  Love 

The  Purity  and  Beauty  of  the  Christian  Life 

The  Refuge  of  the  Devout  Soul 

The  Refuge  that  you  Need       .         . 

The  Responsible  Power  of  Choice    . 

The  Resting  Saviour 

The  Rest  of  Finding  Christ 

The  Reward  of  Christ's  Conflict 

The  Righteousness  of  God 

The  Royalty  of  the  Redeemed , 

The  Rule  of  Christ  . 

The  Saint's  Gift  to  his  Lord 

The  Saints'  Pupilage 

The  Sanctity  of  Love 

The  Satisfied  Soul  still  Seeking 

The  Sea  of  Glass 

The  Search  that  always  Finds 

The  Seeking  Christ . 

The  Service  with  which  Love  is  Honoured 

The  Shepherd- King  .... 

The  Shepherd's  Love  for  the  Scattered  Flock 

The  Significance  of  the  Blood  of  Christ     . 

The  Silence  of  Scripture  .... 

The  Sin  of  Sins        .        •        .         .         . 

The  Sleep  of  Death    «... 

The  Son  of  David 


PAGE 

150 

308 
102 

45 
352 
353 
147 
124 
167 
213 

96 

139 
279 

293 
155 
247 
122 

84 
211 
121 

74 

339 

254 

2 

152 
97 
66 
326 
266 
219 
330 
289 

154 

23 

58 

57 

166 

300 

8 

277 

22 

288 

201 

51 

290 

338 
119 
261 
86 
103 

175 


SUBJECT   INDEX 


The  Soul  Longing  for  God 

The  Source  of  the  True  Knowledge  of  God 

The  Spirit  of  Paul's  Life's  Work 

The  Three-headed  Evil  Thing. — I.  . 

The  Three-headed  Evil  Thing. — IL 

The  True  01)ject  of  Love 

The  Two  Voices      ..... 

The  Tyranny  of  Sin  .... 

The  Ultimate  Purpose  of  God's  Word 

The  Unchilled  Love  of  the  Christ     . 

The  Voice  of  Conscience  .... 

The  Voice  which  softens  the  Grimness  of  Deat 

The  Wonderful  Invitation 

The  Word  of  the  Lord 

Thou  God  Seest  Me 

To-day     . 

To  the  Uttermost     . 

Tragic  Unconsciousness 

Transformation  through  Prayer 

Trifles,  The  Greatness  of  .         .         . 

Triumphant  Confidence    .... 

Triumph,  Our  Commander's  and  our 

True  and  False  Sorrow  for  Sin 

True  Greatness         ..... 

Tyranny  of  Sin,  The        .... 

Ultimate,  The,  Purpose  of  God's  Word    . 
Unchilled  Love  of  the  Christ,  The   . 
Unconsciousness,  Blessed. 
Unconsciousness,  Tragic  .... 
Unconscious  Pov/er  for  Service. 
Unfaithfulness,  Reasons  for      . 
Union  with  God       ..... 
Uttermost,  To  the 

Vengeance  and  Pardon  .... 
Victory,  Memorials  of  ...  . 
Victory,  The  Certainty  of  .         .         . 

Victory  through  the  Blood  of  the  Lamb  . 
Vision,  Faith's  ..... 

Vision,  The  Perfect,  and  the  Perfect  Likeness 
Voice  of  Conscience,  The 
Voices,  The  Two     ..... 
Voice,  The,  which  softens  the  Grimness  of  De 


Watchfulness  .... 

Watchfulness  and  Work   . 

Way,  The  New  and  the  Living 

What  Laits  !    . 

"Whall  shall  I  Render?" 

"  What  wilt  Thou  have  me  to  do  ?" 


th 


273 
184 
236 
196 
197 
24 
118 

77 
263 

76 

265 

317 

270 

190 

40 

3 

337 
322 

351 

88 

251 
159 
134 
no 

77 

263 

76 

321 

322 

28 

IS 

132 

337 

117 

23s 

278 

26 

258 
121 
265 
118 

3^7 

361 
160 
124 
333 
3i9 
172 


38: 


SUBJECT   INDEX 


Whole-hearted  Religion 

Who  is  your  King  ?  . 

"  Whosoever  Will " 

Wing,  The  Covering 

Wisdom,  Divine 

Wisdom,  How  to  get 

Wise  and  Prudent,  Hidden  from  the 

Wonderful  Invitation,  The 

Word  of  the  Lord,  The    . 

Word,  The  Ultimate  Purpose  of  God's 

Work,  God  guides  His  People  into  . 

Work,  Our  Insignificant  and  Incomplete 

Work,  Watchfulness  and  . 

World,  Christ's  Coming  to  the. — I.  . 

World,  Christ's  Coming  to  the.— II. 

Worldly  Good,  Exaltation  above 

World,  The  Fascinating  Influences  of  the 

World,  The  Heavy  Cost  of  the 

Worship  God 

"  Ye  are  My  Witnesses  " .        • 
You  Need  a  Refuge  .         c         . 


Zeal,  Misdirected 


PAGE 

287 

10 

271 

1 86 
127 
128 
II 
270 
190 
263 

2Q2 
285 
160 
268 
269 

"3 

253 

5 

39 

222 
264 

27 


^^3 


TEXTUAL   INDEX 


Genesis. 


IV.   lO 

xii.  2 

xii.  5 

xvi.  13 

xviii.  17 

xxvi.  24 


Exodus. 


i.  6,  7 

X.  26  . 

XV.  26  . 

XXV.   22    . 

xxxiii.  II    . 
xxxiv.  29   . 


Deuteronomy. 


yii.  9     , 
viii.  2 
xxxii.  31    . 


Joshua. 


Y.   14 

xxiv.  15 


•  • 


Judges. 


XVI.  20  ,        .        • 

2  Samuel. 

xii.  5-7 . 

xii.  13  . 

XV.  21     . 

I  Kings. 
xviii.  21   .        .        . 


PAGE 

1x8 

305 

352 

40 

242 

316 


.  283 

.  28 

•  199 

.  289 

.  243 

.  321 


.    188 
.    362 

.     170 


191 

10 


2  Kings. 


322 


.     143 
.     136 

.      31 


319 


xvu.  9 


I  Chronicles. 


XVI.  29 
xxix.  5 
xxix.  28 


2  Chronicles. 


XV.  15  . 
xxviii.  23  . 


iv.  8     . 

xi.  8,  9 

xxii.  21    . 


Job. 


Psalms. 


XVl.    II 

xvii.  15 
xyii.  15 
xxiii. 
xxiii. 
xxiii. 
xxiii. 
xxiii. 
xxiii. 
xxvii. 
xxxiv. 
xxxvi. 
xxxvi. 
xxxvi. 
xxxvi.  8 
xl.  8 
xl.  17 
xlvi.  I 
1.  23 


PAGE 
16 


39 

28s 


287 
286 


.    348 

12 

.     181 


84 

lOI 

121 
290 
291 
292 
293 
309 
129 

133 
189 

19 
20 

25 

276 
169 

314 

96 

304 


384 


TEXTUAL  INDEX 


Isaiah. 


PAGE 


li.  4     . 

.     195 

ii.  8     . 

38 

li.  17   . 

,     146 

vii.  15  . 

30 

lii.  8     . 

.       63 

xii   3     . 

80 

Ixiii.  I 

.     273 

XXV.  4      . 

►    266 

Ixiii.  2     . 

.     274 

xxxii.  2 

.     187 

Ixiii.  3-5  . 

.     275 

xxxii.  17   , 

23 

Ixiii.  8     . 

.     277 

xxxiii.  21   . 

.    280 

Ixiii.  9- 1 1 

.     278 

XXXV.  6     . 

17 

Ixv.  4     . 

.     130 

xl.  I      . 

.     207 

Ixviii.  18   . 

•     332 

xl.  28 

,     206 

Ixxvii.  3     , 

,     265 

xl.  29-3 

I      . 

208 

Ixxxiv.  7     . 

,     209 

xlii.  3     . 

33 

xci.  4     . 

.     186 

xlii.  3 

34 

xci.  9     . 

.     326 

xlii.  4     , 

.      35 

xci.  9,  10 

.     185 

xliii.  I     . 

,     227 

xcii.  2     . 

21 

xlix.  4     , 

.     284 

ciii.  17   . 

.     281 

1.  10 

.     148 

cvii.  7     . 

.    355 

Iv.  I 

,     271 

cxvi.  12   . 

.     349 

lix.  17 

.     114 

cxvi.  13   . 

.     350 

Ix.  16 

.     180 

cxix.  30   . 

.    353 

Ixi.  I 

.     123 

cxxvii.  2     . 

,     102 

Ixiii.  3 

.     311 

cxxx.  I,  2 

.      92 

Ixiii.  9 

.     337 

cxxx.  3     .         , 

93 

Ixv.  I 

.     202 

cxxx.  4     . 

94 

cxxx.  5,  6 

122 

Jeremiah. 

cxxx.  7,  8          , 

.      95 

ii.  12,  13     .        .        .    252 

cxxxii.  14   . 

.     131 

ii.  22  . 

.     198 

cxxxiv.  1-3  .         , 

.     303 

xvii.  I 

37 

cxxxviii.  8     . 
cxlii.  4     . 

.    231 
>    264 

xvii.  I 
xvii.  5 

.     197 

.    254 

Proverbs. 

xvii.  9 

.     196 

xxiii.  24 

.       14 

i.  33  . 

.     132 

xxix.  13 

.     288 

iv.  18  . 

►    237 

xxxi.  3 

.     216 

ix.  9     .         , 

.    300 

xxxi.  33 

.     168 

xvii.  17  .         , 

»     120 

xix.  12  .         , 

.      67 

Lamentations. 

xxii.  8     . 

.    348 

iii.  6     .         .         .         .36 

ECCLESIASTES. 

iii.  37  .         .         .        .     144 

xii.  I     .         .         .         .     320 

Ezekiel. 

xii.  13  .         .         .         .149 

xxxiv.  16  .         .        •        •     200 

Song  of  Solomon. 

xxxvi.  22   .         .         •         ,98 
xxxvi.  22  .         •         •         •     215 

ii.  4    .        •       .       •    220 

xxxix.  13  .         .         •         •     223 

ii.  16  .         •        •         .     165 

iii.  8     .         .        ,        .     150 

Daniel. 

V.  2     , 

» 

t 

.    220 

xii.  3 

1 

.    239 

385 


cc 


TEXTUAL  INDEX 


HOSEA. 


Mark, 


xiv.  5     . 

•         • 

• 

65 

viii.  18   . 

xiv.  5      .         .         , 

• 

68 

viii.  36   . 

xiv.  5,  6          .         . 

• 

66 

X.  32    . 
X.  46    . 

Amos. 

X.  47   . 

iii.  3     •        •        • 

• 

323 

X.  52    . 
xiv.  9 

Jonah. 

XV.  21    . 

ii.  7    .        •    '    • 

• 

162 

xvi.  19   . 

ii.  9     • 

• 

298 

T 

MiCAH. 

] 

i.  IS  . 

ii.  3     . 

• 

125 

vii,  24   . 

ii.  7     . 

• 

152 

viii.  50  . 

Habakkuk. 

viii.  52   . 

iii.  17,  i8      . 

• 

^7 

viii.  54,  55 
ix.  II    . 

Zephaniah. 

ix.  29  . 
xii.  35    • 

iii.  2     . 

• 

219 

xii.  35   . 
xii.  37  . 

Zechariah. 

XV.  2     . 

viii.  8     .        .        , 

• 

163 

xxii.  49,  51 
xxiv.  26   . 

Malachi. 

iii.  16   . 

• 

228 

J 

iii.  17  . 

• 

166 

i.  14  . 
i.  16  . 

Matthew. 

i.  29  . 

iii.  17  . 

• 

358 

i.  43   • 

iv.  19    . 

• 

203 

iii.  16  . 

V.  8     . 

• 

n 

iii.  30   . 

v.  20  . 

. 

142 

iv.  42   . 

vi.  23  . 

• 

255 

V.  39   . 

vi.  34  . 

. 

295 

V.  39,  40 

x.  25    . 

• 

231 

vi.  68  . 

xi.  25,  26 

• 

II 

vii.  Z7  . 

xi.  27   . 

. 

246 

viii.  16   . 

xi.  30  . 

• 

57 

viii.  34   . 

xiii.  43   . 

. 

240 

X.  10   . 

xiii.  58  . 

. 

86 

X.  15,  18 

XX.  28    . 

. 

359 

X.  17,  18 

xxii.  42  . 

. 

175 

xi.  II    . 

xxiv.  46,  47 

. 

161 

xi.  28   . 

XXV.  8     . 

, 

60 

xii.  26   . 

XXV.  8 

. 

62 

xiii.  I 

xxvi.  58   . 

• 

325 

xiii.  35   . 

xxvii.  36   . 

. 

294 

xiv.  2 

xxvii.  55   . 

. 

325 

xiv.  9 

Luke. 


John. 


PAGE 

248 

5 

205 
176 

174 

179 

90 

88 

328 


no 
III 

315 

3i« 
199 

351 
57 
59 

361 

335 
117 

156 


190 
279 

46 
201 
107 

115 

1 84 

147 
263 

99 
272 

3^3 

77 
272 
360 
312 
103 

177 

204 

jj4 

140 

329 
247 


386 


TEXTUAL  INDEX 


xiv.  17 

. 

.  341 

IV.  2  . 

.   15 

XV.  4  . 

.   70 

viii.  6  , 

4 

XV.  5  , 

.   69 

ix.  27  . 

.   55 

XV.  7  . 

.  178 

xi.  24  . 

I 

XV.  20  . 

.  230 

xiii.  2  . 

7 

xvi.  24  . 

.   82 

xiii.  8,  13 

xvi.  32  . 

.  310 

xiii.  12  . 

.   346 

xvi.  33  . 

.  192 

XV.  57  . 

.     26 

xvii.  3  . 
xvii.  15  . 

.  249 
.  338 

2  Corinthians. 

xvii.  19  . 

.  222 

i.  22  . 

.  347 

xix.  30  . 

.  330 

iv.  ID  . 

6 

xix.  38,  39 

.   13 

V.  17  . 

.  233 

XX.  30,  31 

.  261 

vii.  10  . 

.  134 

xxi.  7 
xxi.  15 

.  232 

.   48 

Galatians. 

xxi.  16 

.   49 

ii.  20  . 

.   71 

xxi.  17 

.   SO 

ii.  20  . 

•    • 

.   76 

xxi.  17 

.   51 

iii.  I 

•    • 

.  253 

xxi.  18 

.   52 

vi.  7  . 

■    • 

.   18 

xxi.  25 

.  262 

vi.  14  . 

• 

,  256 

Acts. 

Ephesians. 

i.  8  .    .    .    .  340 

i.  14  . 

.  344 

ii-  3 

.  153 

ii.  7  . 

.  343 

ii.  4 

.  152 

ii.  19  . 

.  259 

iv.  13 

,  112 

iii.  16  . 

.  339 

V.  41  , 

158 

iii.  17  . 

9 

xiii.  9  . 

234 

iii.  18,  19 

8 

XX.  21 

.  173 

V.  I,  2 

.  139 

XX.  24 

236 

Philippians. 

Romans. 

i.  21  . 

►   29 

i.  7  . 

.  141 

i.  27  . 

138 

iii.  22,  23   . 

194 

iii.  10  . 

►   91 

V.  8  . 

42 

iii.  13,  14   , 

2 

V.  8  . 

97 

iii.  20  . 

225 

viii.  2  . 

116 

iv.  3  . 

226 

viii.  18  . 

365 

iv.  6  . 

296 

viii.  32  . 

104 

iv.  10,  II 

251 

viii.  32  . 

244 

iv.  12,  13   , 

113 

X.  2  . 

27 

iv.  13  . 

193 

xi.  33  . 

282 

iv.  13  . 

250 

XV.  4   . 
XV.  13  . 

356 
^3 

Colossians. 

xvi.  3  . 

89 

i.  II  .   .   .   • 

342 

I  Corinthians. 

i.  15  . 

i.  27  . 

•  • 

•  • 

245 
357 

ii.  2  .    .    .    .47 

ii.  2,  3 

•    • 

32 

li.  15  . 

• 

• 

• 

45 

ii.  6  .    • 

•    • 

64 

387 


TEXTUAL   INDEX 


I  Thessalonians.       page 


James. 


ii. 

lO    . 

.    235 

ii. 

12   . 

137 

iv. 

3,4 

,    306 

iv. 

14  . 

100 

V. 

23  . 

53 

2  Thessalonians. 

i. 

10  . 

221 

i. 

10  . 

,    224 

ii. 

16  . 

I  Timothy. 

>    214 

ii. 

3,  4 

.     145 

iii. 

16  . 

>        • 

.      85 

Titus. 


11.  13 


Hebrews 

iii.  15 

iv.  16 

V.  12 

vi.  18 

vi.  20 

vii.  25-27 

viii.  I 

viii.  10 

viii.  10 

viii.  II 

viii.  12 

X.  16 

X.  20 

X.  34 

X.  34 

X.  37 

xi.  I 

xi.  8 

xi.  10 

xi.  13 

xii.  2 

xii.  2 

xii.  6 

xii.  10 

xii.  II 

xii.  24 

xii.  24 

xiii.  5 

213 


3 

54 
238 
267 
126 
331 

159 
164 

168 

182 

135 
167 

124 

307 
308 
269 
258 

354 
260 

257 
155 
330 
302 

299 
301 
118 
119 
61 


1-  5  • 

i.  6  . 

i.  17  . 

ii.  23  . 
iv.  2,  3 

iv.  6  . 

iv.  14  . 

iv.  17  . 


I  Peter. 


i.  8,  9 

i.  13  • 

iii.  13  • 

V.  7  . 


2  Peter. 


i.  5,  6,  7 
iii.  12  . 


I  John. 


i-  7 
ii.  17 
ii.  18 
iii.  I 
iii.  2 
iii.  3 
iii.  16 
iii.  18, 
iv.  8 
iv.  9 
iv.  10 
iv.  18 

V.  3 


19 


Revelation 


i.  5  . 

i.  6  . 

ii.  5  • 

ii.  10  . 

ii.  10  . 

iii.  20  . 

iv.  6 

iv.  II  . 

V.  12  . 

xxii.  12  . 

xxii.  17  . 

xxii.  17  . 


127 

128 
106 
241 

345 
210 

36C 

183 


81 
212 
327 
297 


109 
364 


324 
74 
79 
41 
43 

211 

336 

44 
24 

105 

108 

151 
171 


75 
58 

363 

72 

157 

217 

22 

78 

7S 

220 

26S 

270 


388 


Date  Due 

NU)    4V 

1 

^ 

iM 


